Schulenburg v. Hayden’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 29 state decisions

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 36 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Section 6711, of course, gives the mechanic’s lien a priority over subsequent mortgages. But where the mortgage covers the land and the house, and the house is partially destroyed by fire, and the contractor reconstructs it under a, contract with the owner of the equity of redemption, section 6707, does not authorize the mechanic’s lien to take priority over the mortgage or the sale of the reconstructed house and its removal. It may be that the reconstruction of the house would increase the security of the mortgagee, but he is not bound to rebuild the house — he may be content with his security of the land and the ruins of the house; — which may be worth, as in this case, two-fifths of his mortgage. He has no power to prevent the owner of the- equity of redemption from contracting with any person to reconstruct the house upon the faith of the credit of such owner, because he is not even entitled to foreclose his mortgage until condition broken, and is not entitled to exercise acts of dominion over the property (except to prevent waste) until he acquires title at the foreclosure sale. On the other hand, the contractor can protect himself by not taking the risk, without the express consent of the mortgagee.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 223 Mo. App. 996 - Long and Walters v. Kissee

2. ““The true construction to put on section 6707, Revised Statutes 1889 (now section 4205, R. S. 1899), is that if there is a mortgage on the land and a contractor, under contract with the owner of the equity of redemption, builds, a new house upon the land, he has a mechanic’s lien against the house, and the house may be sold, and may be removed from the land by the purchaser, for this preserves to the mortgagee all the security he formerly had, and secures, as far as possible, the, payment to the contractor for the work and materials he employed in building the house. This is all that section 6707 means or guarantees. This is made perfectly clear in the light of section 6706, which- confines the mechanic’s lien to the right, title and interest of the owner, and it is in harmony with the adjudications, and with the first principles of law and justice.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. McLaren v. International Real Estate & Improvement Co.

3. ““. . . but any attempt to apply such a rule to a case like this, where the old and the new have become inseparable parts of a whole house, would necessarily lead to endless confusion, and nothing short of a sale of the whole and a division of the proceeds could possibly divide the interests of the mortgagee and of the lienor under the mechanic’s lien law.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 225 Mo. App. 299 - Lowry-Miller Lumber Co. v. Dean