Meade v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 district · 21 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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““It is further urged that the arrangement in question furnishes a most convenient mode, by which a fraud on the creditors of a vendor may be perpetrated, and therefore that it should not be sustained. It may be said of almost every species of contract for the conveyance of property that it may be resorted to by the wicked as a mere cover for fraud and knavery, although it is also true that some, from their greater plausibility, are more difficult to expose, and therefore furnish more easy facilities for that purpose, than others. Still this has never been deemed a sufficient reason for setting aside, or refusing to enforce, honest agreements which on their face are not unlawful; and to do so on that ground would not only be palpably unjust to the parties, but a most injurious restriction on the right of contract and alienation. In Forbes v. Marsh, 15 Conn. 384 , and in Calkins v. Lockwood [16 Conn.] 276 [ 41 Am. Dec. 143 ], decided by us the present year, we had occasion to consider objections to contracts of the same character as those here urged; but in both of those cases, which were stronger than this, they were overruled. On such a question, many of the topics which have been urged before us would be pertinent. The situation and circumstances of the parties, the time of the conveyance, its form and mode, and, in short, all the circumstances attending it would be proper to be considered in ascertaining the real object in view and in determining whether the transaction was”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Savage v. Scroggin