Hammels v. Sentous’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 12 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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““We think the construction of section 2965 urged by respondent is the proper one. The section declares that when mortgaged property is removed from the county in which it is situate it is exempted from the operation of the mortgage, unless within 30 days the mortgagee does one of two things. To express the same idea in slightly different words, the property is exempted from the operation of the mortgage, if the mortgagee does not within 30 days record the mortgage in the county in which the property is removed or take possession of it. By necessary implication from the language used, the property is not exempted if within 30 days the mortgagee does do either of the prescribed acts. Whether or not he will do one of them cannot be determined until the 30 days shall expire. In the interval the ‘ condition upon which the statute has made the loss of his lien depend has not taken place Until he has failed to do what is required of him for the preservation of his mortgage — and he cannot be said to have so failed until 30 days after the removal of the property— the mortgage is unaffected by the removal and the exemption declared by section 2965 has not arisen. “But apart from the mere question of grammatical interpretation, the position of respondent is supported by considerations of reason and justice. The lender who has taken a mortgage of personal property, and has had it executed and recorded as required .by law, has acquired a right of property. The statute evidently contempla”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Snodgrass v. J. I. Case Threshing MacH. Co.

2. ““§ 260. The removal of a mortgagor from the town or county in which he resided when the mortgage was executed, and where it was duly recorded, and the taking of the mortgaged property with him, does not invalidate the record of the mortgage, or necessitate the recording of it again in the town or county to which he has removed. The object in requiring a record of the mortgage is to give publicity to it, and to provide a source of information eommon to all persons, so that they may determine, with some degree of facility, convenience, and certainty, the question of title to the property, whenever they may be interested to know it; while at the same time it is not among the purposes of the recording acts to subject a bona Me mortgagee to the inconvenience of the constant vigilance and ceaseless watehing which would be requisite to guard and secure his interests, if he were obliged to record his mortgage in every town into which the mortgagor might see fit to remove with the property. If he were required to do this, his security would be well-nigh worthless; for before he could do this, a creditor of the mortgagor might seize the property by process of law, or the mortgagor himself might pass the title to it by way of sale to an innocent purchaser. “In like manner, if the mortgage be required to be recorded in tbe county of the mortgagor’s residence, his removal with the property to another county does not necessitate the recording of tile mortgage again in the county to whieh h”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Globe Grain & Milling Co. v. De Tweede Northwestern & Pacific Hypotheekbank