Ervin v. Oregon Ry. & Nav. Co.’s Empirical Analysis
20 F. 577 · 1884
Citation profile
8 federal appellate · 3 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 16 later decisions — most recently December 2015
8 federal appellate · 3 district · 1 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 Hatch v. Dana · Brewer v. Proprietors of the Boston Theatre · Ribon v. Railroad Companies · Clarke v. White · State Savings Ass'n v. Kellogg
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 16 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““For the purposes of the demurrers, and assuming the facts alleged in the bill to be true, the ease disclosed may be briefly stated as follows: A majority of the stockholders of a corporation resolve to avail themselves of their power as a quorum to sacrifice the interests of the minority stockholders for their own profit, by dissolving the corporation and selling its property and franchises to themselves at half their real value. This scheme they have carried out, and now retain its fruits. They have thrust out the complainants, the minority, from their position as stockholders, terminating their relations with the corporation as such, and have deprived them from realizing what would belong to them upon a fair disposition and division of the corporate property. The defendant the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company is this majority of stockholders, and the defendantVillard is a privy and confederate in the whole transaction.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage““If the majority sell the assets to themselves they must account for their fair value. They cannot bind the minority by fixing their own price upon the assets. A majority have no right to exercise the control over the corporate management which legitimately belongs to them for the purpose of appropriating the corporate property or its avails to themselves, or to any of the shareholders, to the exclusion or prejudice of the others. Brewer v. Boston Theater, 104 Mass. 378 , 395; Preston v. Grand Collier Dock Co., 11 Sim. 327; Hodgkinson v. National Live Stock Ins. Co., 26 Beav. 473; Atwood v. Merryweather, L. R., 5 Eq. 464, note.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.