Humphrey v. Tatman’s Empirical Analysis
198 U.S. 91 · 1905
Citation profile
77 federal appellate · 78 district · 33 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 243 later decisions (27 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 1970 · most notably York Manufacturing Company v. Arthur Cassell J B (1906), National City Bank v. Hotchkiss (1913)
77 federal appellate · 78 district · 33 state decisions — followed in 16 states
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 Frank Thompson v. Henry Fairbanks · Sawyer v. Turpin · Blanchard v. Cooke · Haskell v. Merrill
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 243 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The question, then, is one of Massachusetts law, and unfortunately the decision does not leave us free from doubt, upon that point. If hereafter the Supreme Court of the state should adopt a different view from that to which we have been driven, this case would cease to be a precedent. The language of the Massachusetts statute is: ‘Unless the property mortgaged has been delivered to and retained by the mortgagee, the mortgage shall not be valid against a person other than the parties thereto until it has been so recorded; and a record made subsequently to the time limited (fifteen days) shall be void.’ Mass. Rev. Laws, c. 198, § 1. There are cases which indicate that an assignee in bankruptcy is a universal successor, like an executor or a husband, and so that, as it is put in Lowell, Bankruptcy, § 309, the assignee is the bankrupt. * * * But it is the settled law of Massachusetts that such a fictitious identity does not satisfy the statute that the trustee in bankruptcy is ‘a person other than the parties thereto,’ and that, therefore, as against him, the mortgage is void. Bingham v. Jordan, 1 Allen (Mass.) 373, 79 Am. Dec. 748 ; Blanchard v. Cooke, 144 Mass. 207 , 226, 11 N. E. 83 ; Haskell v. Merrill, 179 Mass. 120 , 124, 125, 60 N. E. 485 . Haskell v. Merrill is cited and relied on in the Supreme Court of the state, and we assume that it and the other eases cited still correctly state the law. It is clear under these cases that recording or taking possession after the qu”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““The defendant’s acquisition of possession of the mortgaged property before the commencement of the proceedings in bankruptcy, and, before third persons had acquired liens or rights by attachment or otherwise, gave him a title which was good at common law against creditors, and which would have been good against an assignee in insolvency under the statutes of this commonwealth, or against an assignee in bankruptcy under the United States bankruptcy act of 1867.’’”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. In re Hurley
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.