Doty v. Love’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

12 federal appellate · 3 district · 92 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 133 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"All that the statute does upon its face is to change the method of liquidation. The assets of the business are to be devoted without impairment or diversion to the payment of the debts. ... In the discretion of the court of chancery a reopened bank is to take the place of the state superintendent for the purpose of gathering in the assets and discharging liabilities. The substitution may not be made unless the court is satisfied that the reopened bank is solvent and able to satisfy the debts to be assumed. Payment of the creditors is still the end to be attained, and resumption of business a means and nothing more. If debts are thereby swollen or assets made to shrink, the outcome is an unlooked-for incident of a method of administration conceived to be more efficient than present sale and distribution. The Constitution of the United States does not confer upon the depositors a vested right to liquidation at the hands of a state official. . . . "The argument will not hold that the necessary operation of the statute is to subject dissenting creditors, who may be as many as one-fourth, to the will or the whim of the assenting three-fourths. The creditors favoring reorganization, though, they he 99 per cent, have no power under the statute to impose their will on a minority. They may advise and recommend, hut they are powerless to coerce. Their recommendation will he ineffective unless approved hy the superintendent. Even if approved hy him, it will he ineffective unless the co”

   5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Paine v. Fox · In Re Mechanics Trust Co.

2. ““The argument is made that a cause of action upon contract has been destroyed or given away to the prejudice of depositors in that shareholders have been released from their personal liability in return for a contribution of capital to the regenerated business. This is said to constitute a denial of due process or an impairment of contract within the doctrine of Ettor v. Tacoma, 228 U. S. 148 , and Coombes v. Getz, 285 U. S. 434 . The answer is much the same as to the argument last considered. The effect of the release has been to make it possible for the bank to be reopened with the result to the creditors of economies and other benefits that would otherwise be lost. . . . “In such circumstances it is idle to speak of the release of liability as a gift or a sacrifice of valuable assets. The release was none of that, but a compromise of a liability of uncertain value upon terms beneficial to the creditors. So the trier of the facts has found. The title to the extinguished cause of action was not in the depositors, but in the Superintendent or the bank. If there had been no plan to reorganize, the Superintendent like a receiver might have compromised the cause of action and released it with the approval of the court. His authority was no less because the release was incidental to a project to rehabilitate a business for the good of all concerned.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. In Re Mechanics Trust Co. · 4 Wash. 2d 459 - Greathouse v. Yakima Valley Bank & Trust Co.

3. “The appellants also say that their constitutional rights were infringed by those provisions of the plan whereby a preference was granted to the holders of small claims. None of these claims ($3,649.87 in the aggregate) was for more than $5, and many, we were informed upon the argument, were for only a few cents. The chancellor found by his decree that it would be more economical to pay these accounts in full than to incur the bookkeeping expenses incidental to a calculation of percentages whenever dividends were paid to others. Cf. Nagel v. Ghinger, supra ( 166 Md. 231 ; 171 Atl. Rep. 65 ; 92 A.L.R. 1315 . ) The objecting creditors have not been damaged by that feature of the plan.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. In Re Mechanics Trust Co.