Downer v. Brackett’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 district · 2 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 3 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Whether the summons of garnishment creates a lien depends upon the particular shade of meaning given to the word ‘lien.’ If it be used in the old common-law sense of the right to immediately grasp or hold in manual possession a chattel till something be performed or done by the owner, then a summons of garnishment does not create a lien on the funds in the hands of the garnishee; but the word has also a broader meaning. ‘The term “lien,” in a narrow and more technical sense, signifies the right by which a person in possession of personal property holds and detains it against the owner in satisfaction of a demand; but it has a more extensive meaning, and in common acceptation is understood and used to denote a legal claim or charge on property, either real or personal, for the payment of any debt or duty. Every such claim or charge is still a lien on the property, although the property be not in the possession of him to whom the debt or duly is due.’ ‘A lien is defined to be a hold or claim which one has upon the property of another as security for some debt or charge. At common law there could be no lien without possession. It is therein defined as a right in one man to retain that which is in possession and belonging to another. In maritime law, liens exist independently of possession, either actual or constructive, and in the courts of equity the term “lien” is used as synonymous with a charge or incumbrance upon the thing where there is neither jus in re nor ad rem, nor p”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. In re Maher