United States v. California & Oregon Land Co.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

62 federal appellate · 20 district · 52 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 211 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““In Story’s Equity Jurisprudence, section 411, the author says: ‘Indeed, purchasers of this sort [bona fide purchasers] are so much favored in equity that it may be stated to be a doctrine now generally established that a bona fide purchaser for a valuable consideration, without notice of any defect in his title at the time of his purchase, may lawfully buy in any statute (sic), mortgage, or other incumbrance upon the same estate for his protection. If he can defend himself by any of them at law, his adversary will have no help in equity to set these incum-brances aside; for equity will not disarm such a purchaser, but will act upon the wise policy of the common law to protect and quiet lawful possessions and strengthen such titles.’ And the reason of this is given in Boone v. Chiles, 10 Pet. 177 , 210 [ 9 L. Ed. 388 ], as follows: ‘This leads to the, reason for protecting an innocent purchaser, holding the legal title, against one who has the prior equity; a court of equity can act only on the conscience of a party; if he has done nothing that taints it, no demand can attach upon it, so as to give any jurisdiction. Strong as a plaintiff’s equity may be, it can in no case be stronger than that -of a purchaser, who has put himself in peril by purchasing a title, and paying a valuable consideration without notice of any defect in it, or adverse claim to it.’””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Simpson v. Cornish · Miller v. Barnett

2. ““As against these evidences and conclusions of good faith but a single proposition is raised, one upon which the dissenting judge in the circuit court of appeals rested his opinion, and that is the proposition that the conveyances from the road company were only quitclaim deeds, and that a purchaser holding-under such a deed cannot he a bona fide purchaser, and in support of this proposition reference is made to the following cases in this court: [Citing cases.] The argument, briefly stated, is that he who will give only a quitclaim deed in effect notifies his vendee that there is some defect in his title, and the latter, taking with such notice, takes at his peril. It must be confessed that there are expressions in the opinions in the cases referred to which go to the full length of this proposition. Thus, in Baker v. Humphrey, 101 U. S. 494, 499 , 25 L. Ed. 1065, 1067 , Mr. Justice SWAYNE, in delivering the opinion of the court, uses this language: ‘Neither of them was in any sense a bona fide purchaser. No one taking a quitclaim deed can stand in that relation.’ Yet it may be remarked that in none of these cases was it necessary to go to the full extent of denying absolutely that a party taking a quitclaim deed could be a bona fide purchaser; and in the latter case of McDonald v. Belding, 145 U. S. 492 , 12 Sup. Ct. Rep. 892, 36 L. Ed. 788 , it was held, in a case coming from Arkansas and in harmony with the rulings of the supreme court of that state, that while ordinarily”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Phoenix Title & Trust Co. v. Old Dominion Co.

3. ““Now, even in those courts in which the rule was announced that one who takes under a quitclaim deed cannot be a bona fide purchaser, it was sometimes limited to the grantee in such a deed, and not extended to those cases in which a quitclaim was only a prior conveyance in the chain of title (Snowden v. Tyler. 21 Neb. 199 , 31 N. W. 661 ), and this is certainly a most reasonable limitation, because the rule is obviously, at the best, arbitrary and technical; for a party who receives a quitclaim deed may act in the utmost good faith, and in fact be ignorant of any defect in the title, and this, although he has made the most complete and painstaking investigation, and only takes the quitclaim deed because the grantor, for expressed and satisfactory reasons, declines to give a warranty. It would bo unfortunate, in view of the fact that in so many chains of title there are found quitclaim deeds, to extend a purely arbitrary rule so as to make the fact of such a deed notice of anxr prior defect in the title.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. McCollum v. Burton