City of Brenham v. German-American Bank’s Empirical Analysis
144 U.S. 173 · 1892
Citation profile
33 federal appellate · 8 district · 42 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 121 later decisions (5 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 1983 · most notably Washington v. W. C. Dawson & Co. (1924), Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co. (1932)
33 federal appellate · 8 district · 42 state decisions — followed in 19 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Witherspoon v. Duncan · Marsh v. Fulton County · Claiborne Co v. Brooks · Buchanan v. Litchfield
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 121 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““It is easy for the legislature to confer upon a municipality, when it is constitutional to do so, the power to issue negotiable bonds; and, under the well-settled law that any doubt as to the existence of such power ought to be determined against its existence, it ought not to be held to exist in tlie present ease.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““As there is no authority to issue the bonds, even ‘a bona fide holder of them cannot have a right to recover upon them or their coupons.” (citing cases.)”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“"It is admitted that the power to borrow money or to incur indebtedness carries with it the power to issue the usual evidences of indebtedness, by the corporation, to the lender or other creditor. Such evidences may be in the form of promissory notes, warrants, and perhaps, most generally, in that of a bond. But there is a marked legal difference between the power to gire a note to a lender for the amount of money borrowed, or to a creditor for the amount due, and the power to issue for sale, in open market, a bond, as a commercial security, with immunity, in the hands of a bona fide holder for value, from equitable defenses. The plaintiff in error contends that there is no legal or substantial difference between the two; that the issuing and disposal of bonds in market, though in common parlance, and sometimes in legislative enactment, called a ‘sale,’ is not so in fact; and that the so-called ‘purchaser’ who takes the bond, and advances his money for it. is actually a lender, as much so as a person who takes a bond payable to him in ids own name. * * * It does not follow that, because the town of Monticello had the right to contract a loan, it liad therefore the right to issue negotiable bonds, and put them on the market as evidences of such loan. To borrow money, and to give a bond or obligation therefor which may circulate in the market as a negotiable security, freed from any equities' that may he set up by tlio maker of it, are, in their nature and in their legal effect”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.