Waller v. Waller’s Empirical Analysis
1946
Citation profile
14 federal appellate · 14 district · 71 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 123 later decisions — most recently March 2018 · most notably Hecht v. Resolution Trust Corp. (1994), Werbowsky v. Collomb (2001)
14 federal appellate · 14 district · 71 state decisions
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.
Relationships
Relies on Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority · Hawes v. Oakland · Commonwealth v. Davis · Jackson v. Ludeling · Continental Securities Co. v. . Belmont
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 123 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The reason for this rule is that the cause of action for injury to the property of a corporation or for impairment or destruction of its business is in the corporation, and such an injury, although it may diminish the value of the capital stock, is not primarily or necessarily a damage to the stockholder, and hence the stockholder’s derivative right can be asserted only through the corporation.”
12 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The reason for this distinction is that in law the corporation has a separate existence as a distinct person, in which all corporate property is vested and to which the directors are responsible for a strict and faithful discharge of their duty....”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“For example, in Vierling v. Baxter, 293 Pa. 52 , 141 A. 728 , it was held that a stockholder could bring suit against the officers of the corporation for defrauding him of his patents, royalties, and other property, because the gravamen of his complaint was not the damage to the corporation or its stockholders in general but to himself personally. Likewise, in Cutting v. Bryan, 9 Cir., 30 F.2d 754 , where a corporate officer entered into a contract to convey to the corporation the title to certain property which had been taken in his own name, it was decided that individual stockholders could bring suit against him, because he held the property in trust for the benefit of the stockholders. Again, in Blakeslee v. Sottile, 118 Misc. 513 , 194 N.Y.S. 752 , where the manager of an incorporated automobile sales agency, who held a considerable amount of the capital stock as a trustee, impaired the business by persuading the automobile manufacturer to transfer the agency’s contract to another company, it was held that the owner of the stock could bring suit against the manager for violating his fiduciary duty.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.