DeCourcey v. Collins’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 district · 8 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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The question thus presented is within a very narrow compass, and is not free from difficulty. Its solution depends upon the meaning of the word ‘reside’ employed in the statute. It is to be regretted that we are not guided by some direct controlling adjudication in the courts of New York construing the statute under examination. But no such decision has been brought to our attention. With some hesitation we have reached the conclusion that a chattel mortgage, executed by a firm upon firm property, is void, under the New York statute, as against creditors, subsequent purchasers, and mortgagees in good faith, unless filed in the city or town where the individual members of the firm severally reside. The statute upon its face furnishes persuasive evidence that its framers intended to make a sharp distinction between the place where the property might be at the time of the execution of the mortgage and the place of the mortgagor’s residence. If he be a nonresident of the state of New York, the mortgage may be filed in the town or city where the property shall be at the time of the execution of the mortgage. If he be a resident, then his residence, not the actual situs of the property, governs. If these instruments be executed by several resident mortgagors, the statute would seem to require that the mortgage be filed in the towns or cities where the mortgagors at the time respectively reside.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. E. I. Du Pont de Nemours Powder Co. v. Jones Bros.