Jennings v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

71 federal appellate · 18 district · 35 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 199 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““In the absence of tokens of a contrary intention, the better common-law doctrine is that the agency of a collecting bank is brought to an end by the collection of the paper, the bank being from then on in the position of a debtor, with liberty, like debtors generally, to use the proceeds as its own.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Powell v. Bank of America National Trust & Savings Ass'n · Bell National Bank of Pineville v. Green

2. “What happened in the clearing house was this, that a check for $2,196.89, due to the collecting bank as agent or fiduciary, was used to cancel or extinguish liability upon a check or checks of equal amount due from it as principal * * *. At the close of the day there was not a dollar in the treasury of the agent that could be identified as part of the proceeds of collection or as a substitute therefor. If the money had been paid over the counter with the understanding that it was accepted as a special deposit [citations omitted], the doctrine of a continuing trust would charge the agent with a duty to set the proceeds of collection apart from other assets, and hold them intact for transmission to the forwarder. Nothing of the kind was done. * * * 32 * * * Currency paid over the counter and deposited in a vault is a thing that can be identified and so subjected to a trust whenever in equity and conscience a trust should be implied. * * * But the situation is very difficult when what has been received by the collecting agent is not a thing at all, but a reduction of liabilities by set off or release [citations omitted]. A debt does not furnish a continuum upon which a trust can be imposed after cancellation or extinguishment has put the debt out of existence. 33 * * * What was done by the collecting bank through a settlement in the clearing house has not increased the assets available for distribution in the hands of the receiver.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Federal Deposit Insurance v. Mademoiselle of California

3. ““Where an agent collecting bank other than the drawee or payor shall fail or be closed for business as above, after having received in any form the proceeds of an item or items entrusted to it for collection, but without such item or items having been paid or remitted for by it either in money or by an unconditional credit given on its books or on the books of any other bank which has been requested or accepted so as to constitute such failed collecting or other bank debtor therefor, the assets of such agent collecting bank which has failed or been closed for business as above shall be impressed with a trust in favor of the owner or owners of such item or items for the amount of such proceeds and such owner or owners shall be entitled to a preferred claim upon such assets, irrespective of whether the fund representing such item or items can be traced and identified as part of such assets or has been intermingled with or converted into other assets of such failed bank.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Madden v. Wilde, St. Examr.