May v. Tenney’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 federal appellate · 3 district · 13 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 37 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““This statute, so far as we are advised, has not been before the supreme court, of Colorado for construction; at least not for any question involved in this case. The first section, it will be perceived, gives permission to make a general assignment. There is no compulsion. There is neither in terms nor by implication any duty cast upon an insolvent to dispose of his property by a general assignment, or anything which prevents him from paying or securing one creditor in preference to others. On the contrary, the last half of section 18 plainly recognizes the right of a debtor to prefer by payment or security; and, in the light of this statute, the quotation which we have made from the supreme court of Colorado becomes pertinent, which clearly affirms the right of a debtor to do with his property as he pleases, except as in terms restrained by statute; and a statute which simply permits a debtor to make a certain disposition of his property works no destruction of his otherwise unrestrained dominion over it.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Drake v. Paulhamus

2. ““No general assignment of property by an insolvent or in contemplation of insolvency for the benefit of creditors, shall be valid unless it be made for the benefit of all his creditors in proportion to the amount of their respective debts.” See. 2743, Gen. St. Wash.: “The debtor shall annex to such assignment an inventory under oath of all Ms estate real and personal. * * * Every assignment shall be in writing and duly acknowledged in the same manner as conveyances of real estate and recorded in the record of deeds of the county where the person making the same resides. * * *””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Drake v. Paulhamus

3. ““The question of the construction and effect of a statute of a state, regulating assignments for the benefit of creditors,' is a question upon which the decisions of the highest court of the state, establishing a rule of property, are of controlling- authority in the courts of the United States. * ■' « If, therefore, different interpretations are given in different states to a similar local law, that law, in effect, becomes, by the interpretations, so far as it is a rule for our action, a different law in one slate from what it is in the other.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Independent District of Pella v. Beard