Safe Deposit & Trust Co. v. Virginia’s Empirical Analysis
280 U.S. 83 · 1929
Citation profile
40 federal appellate · 12 district · 122 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 256 later decisions (41 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2019 · most notably State of Texas v. State of Florida (1939), Miller Bros. v. Maryland (1954)
40 federal appellate · 12 district · 122 state decisions — followed in 27 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 Flint v. Stone Tracy Co. · Blair v. United States · Burton v. United States · Union Refrigerator Transit Company v. Commonwealth of Kentucky · Frick v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
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 256 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Manifestly, the securities are subject to taxation in Maryland where they are in the actual possession of the trust company— holder of the legal title. That they are property within Maryland is not questioned. De Ganay v. Lederer, 250 U. S. 376 , 382, 39 S. Ct. 524 , 63 L. Ed. 1042 . * * * They have no legal situs for taxation in Virginia unless the legal fiction mobilia sequuntur personam is applicable and controlling. * * * “Ordinarily this court recognizes that the fiction of mobilia sequuntur personam may be applied in order to determine the situs of intangible personal property for taxation. Blodgett v. Silberman, 277 U. S. 1 , 48 S. Ct. 410 , 72 L. Ed. 749 . But the general rule must yield to established fact of legal ownership, actual presence and control elsewhere, and ought not to be applied if so to do would result in inescapable and patent injustice whether through double taxation, or otherwise. * * * “No opinion of this court seems definitely to rule the exact point now presented.””
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Graves v. Elliott · Hill v. Carter““'It would be unfortunate, perhaps amazing, if a legal fiction originally invented to prevent personalty from escaping just taxation, should compel us to accept the irrational view that the same securities were within two states at the same instant and because of this to uphold a double and oppressive assessment”.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Taxes generally are imposed upon persons, for the general advantages of living within the jurisdiction, not upon property, although generally measured more or less by reference to the riches of the person taxed, on grounds not of fiction but of fact. Fidelity & Columbia Trust Co. v. Louisville, 245 U.S. 54 , 58, 38 S.Ct. 40 , 62 L.Ed. 145 , L.R.A.1918C, 124; Kirtland v. Hotchkiss, 100 U.S. 491 , 498, 25 L.Ed. 558 . The notion that the property must be within the jurisdiction puts the emphasis on the wrong thing. The owner may be taxed for it although it never has been within the State. Southern Pacific Co. v. Kentucky, 222 U.S. 63 , 32 S.Ct. 13 , 56 L.Ed. 96 .””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.