In Re Smith’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

9 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 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[A]lter ego is only one of the bases for disregarding the corporation fiction: where a corporation is organized and operated as a mere tool or business conduit of another corporation. Alter ego applies when there is such unity between the corporation and the individual that the separateness of the corporation has ceased and holding only the corporation liable would result in injustice. It is shown from the total dealings of the corporation and the individual, including the degree to which corporate formalities have been followed and corporate and individual property have been kept separately, the amount of financial interest, ownership and control the individual maintains over the corporation, and whether the corporation has been used for personal purposes. Alter ego’s rationale is: if the shareholders themselves disregard the separation of the corporate enterprise, the law will also disregard it so far as necessary to protect the individual and corporate creditors.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. In Re Williams