In re Reinboth’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 federal appellate · 3 district ·

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

1. ““The referee misconceived the law. A trustee may be charged with the value of assets which never came into his possession if he failed in his duty to get them into his possession. Trustees in bankruptcy, like executors and administrators, are bound to use due diligence to get in the assets of the estate — to secure possession of the tangible property and collect the debts. If they fail in their duty, they may be charged in their accounts with the value of the assets thereby lost. If they take no steps to secure property or collect debts, of which they have knowledge, they are presumptively negligent. The burden is upon them to explain their failure to act. Harrington v. Keteltas, 92 N. Y. 40 ; O’Connor v. Gifford, 117 N. Y. 275 , 22 N. E. 1036 ; Anderson v. Piercy, 20 W. Va. 282 ; Sterling v. Wilkinson, 83 Va. 791 , 3 S. E. 533 ; Tuttle v. Robinson, 33 N. H. 120 ; 3 Williams on Executors, 331. The ground upon which the referee excluded the evidence being unfounded, his •action in doing so was erroneous. The evidence as to the ownership of the property and as to its sale as an alleged pledge should all have been received. As it was excluded, we cannot tell how far it would have gone. Certainly it need not have gone far, in view of the trustee’s action in suffering the bond to be canceled, and in failing to obey the direction of the court, to throw upon him the burden of showing that he did his duty.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Casey v. Baker