Fisher v. McGuire’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[I]t has been almost universally recognized both in England and in this country that a person’s name, whether signed by another or mechanically printed, constitutes a valid signature of that person when he recognizes and appropriates it as his. And formal acknowledgment of the instrument by one whose name is signed on it by another results in the signature becoming, by adoption, that of the one who acknowledges it. The signature, in these circumstances, is as effective as if the person’s hand had guided the pen over the paper.. . . The rationale for the conclusion we express here can best be explained by pointing out that the acts of formally acknowledging a deed before a state official and of delivering the document . . . are so positive and emphatic that the grantor is deemed to have adopted the signing, no matter who actually performed the act, nor whether it was done with or without the grantor’s consent.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Calhoun