Ertel v. McCloskey’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 8 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 20 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The court below refused recovery, holding that payment of a debt by the third party, accepted by the creditor, relieves the debtor of further obligation to the creditor. It held that “on August 14, 1944, the Drake [Hotel] had nothing to assign, its claim having been paid off on August 9th; that plaintiff therefore took nothing by the purported assignment and cannot maintain that present action against defendant.” It is not particularly material, but actually Drake was not “paid off” on August 9th; it did not release the furniture until after Frey’s check cleared the banks. But even so, on August 9th Drake effectually assigned its claim to Ertel by words in praesenti. It did not, as the court held, agree to assign; it actually assigned on that date. If the agent who executed the August 9th assignment was authorized to sign on behalf of Drake, that assignment was as valid as against McCloskey as the second assignment executed formally by the corporate officers.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Brager v. Blum