Chillemi v. Chillemi’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 district · 13 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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““It has long been held at common law that there cannot be a valid delivery of a deed to the grantee named therein upon a condition not expressed in the deed. The ancient rule that the mere transfer of a deed from the grantor to the grantee overrides the grantor’s explicit declaration of intention that the deed shall not become operative immediately is a relic of the primitive formalism which attached some peculiar efficacy to the physical transfer of the deed as a symbolical transfer of the land. 9 Wigmore on Evidence, 3d Ed., secs. 2405, 2408; 4 Tiffany, Real Property, 3d Ed., sec. 1049. In England in ancient times there could be no change of possession of land until a livery of seisin had taken place. A knife was produced and a piece of turf was cut, the turf was handed over to the new owner. Later, under the Roman influence, the written document came into use. These documents, which few people had the art to manufacture, were regarded with mystical awe. Just as the sod had been taken up from the ground to be delivered, so the document was laid upon the ground and then solemnly lifted and delivered as a symbol of ownership. In this way the principle developed that the delivery of the deed was the mark of finality. “Through the centuries the courts have struggled to break away from this strict formalism. The first sign of flexibility in the rule was the concession that the delivery of a deed may be conditioned upon the performance of some act or the occurrence of some event,”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Hall v. Baughman