Walker v. Brown’s Empirical Analysis
165 U.S. 654 · 1897
Citation profile
196 federal appellate · 47 district · 101 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 457 later decisions (22 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2014 · most notably Sereboff v. Mid Atlantic Medical Services, Inc. (2006), Dean v. Davis (1917)
196 federal appellate · 47 district · 101 state decisions — followed in 26 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Appellate journey
reviewedthe decision below (from Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Fourth Street Bank v. Yardley · Runkle v. Burnham · Ketchum v. St. Louis
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 457 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“every express executory agreement in writing, whereby the contracting party sufficiently indicates an intention to make some particular property, real or personal, or fund, therein described or identified, a security for a debt or other obligation, or whereby the party promises to convey or assign or transfer the property as security, creates an equitable lien upon the property so indicated, which is enforceable against the property in the hands, not only of the original contractor, but of his heirs, administrators, executors, voluntary assignees, and purchasers or incumbrancers with notice”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“It is clear that if the express intention of the parties was to create an equitable lien upon the bonds or the value thereof, or if such intention arises by a necessary implication from the terms of the agreement, construed with reference to the situation of the parties at the time of the contract, and by the attendant circumstances, such equitable lien will be enforced by a court of equity against the bonds in the hands of Brown or against third parties who are volunteers or have notice”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““To dedicate properly to a particular purpose, to provide that a specific creditor and that creditor alone shall be authorized to seek payment of his debt from the property or its value, is unmistakably to create an equitable lien.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Wilder v. Watts · Pattison v. Dale
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.