Ferguson v. Boyd’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 33 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 37 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Being compelled to ask the interposition of a court of equity in his behalf, he must first have the standard of equity applied to his own conduct. If that condemn him he must go out of court. ‘He who comes into a court of equity must come with clean hands’ is a maxim rigidly enforced and sternly applied to the conduct of every person who seeks the aid of a court of conscience. ‘One who comes for relief into a court whose proceedings are intended to reach the conscience of the parties,’ says Mr. Justice Wells, in Hassam v. Barrett (1873), 115 Mass. 256 , ‘must have that standard applied to his own conduct in the transaction out of which his grievance arises. If that condemns himself he cannot insist upon applying it to the other party.’ This rule is as applicable to a plaintiff in a suit to declare an absolute deed a mortgage and to be allowed to redeem, as in any other case, and he is under the same obligation to do equity as any other person who seeks redress in a court of equity.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Walner v. Capron