United States v. Knott’s Empirical Analysis
298 U.S. 544 · 1936
Citation profile
36 federal appellate · 47 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 141 later decisions (21 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 1993 · most notably United States Department of Treasury v. Fabe (1993), United States v. Waddill, Holland & Flinn, Inc. (1945)
36 federal appellate · 47 state decisions — followed in 16 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 Bramwell v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co. · Price v. United States · United States v. State of Oklahoma · Pierce v. United States · New York v. Maclay
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 141 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The question for our decision is the legal effect upon the asserted federal right of the statute so construed. As was said in Thelusson v. Smith; 2 Wheat. 396, 426 , 4 L.Ed. 271: ‘The United States are to be first satisfied; but then it must be out of the debtor’s estate. If, therefore, before the right ,of preference has accrued to the United States, the debtor has made a bona fide conveyance of his estate to a third person, or has mortgaged the same to secure a debt, -or if his property has been seized under a fi. fa., the property is divested out of the debtor, and cannot be made liable to the United States.’” (Emphasis added.)”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“But it is settled that an inchoate lien is not enough to defeat the [Federal Government's] priority. . . . Unless the law of Florida effected . . . either a transfer of title from the company, or a specific perfected lien in favor of the Florida creditors, the United States is entitled to priority”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“an inchoate general lien for the benefit of those persons who may become entitled to be paid from the proceeds,”
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.