Niehoff v. Maynard’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 district ·

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

1. “Sound public policy requires the acts of corporate officers and directors in dealing with the corporation to be viewed with a reasonable strictness. Where suit is brought in equity to compel them to account for loss or damage resulting to the corporation through passive neglect of duty, without more, the argument that they ought not to be deprived of the benefit of the statute of limitations is not without weight; but where they are required to answer for wrongful acts of commission by which they have enriched themselves to the injury of the corporation, a court of conscience will not regard such acts as mere torts, but as serious breaches of trust, and will point the moral and make clear the principle that corporate officers and directors, while not in strictness trustees, will, in such case, be treated as though they were in fact trustees of an express and subsisting trust, and without the protection of the statute of limitations, especially where insolvency of the corporation is the result of their wrongdoing.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Sheffield Steel Corp. v. HMK Enterprises, Inc. (In Re Sheffield Steel Corp.)

2. “Since trust and good faith are the essence of this relationship, it would be corrosive and contradictory for the law to punish reasonable reliance on that good faith by applying the statute of limitations woodenly or automatically to alleged self-interested violations of trust. It does not, in my opinion, do so. Reasonable reliance upon the competence and good faith of others who have assumed legal responsibilities towards a plaintiff have not infrequently been held sufficient to toll the running of an applicable statute of limitations.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Sheffield Steel Corp. v. HMK Enterprises, Inc. (In Re Sheffield Steel Corp.)

3. “[A] plaintiff who is duped by a fiduciary is given far more leeway than a plaintiff who is victimized by someone in an arm’s length transaction. If the plaintiff can demonstrate that the defendant was a fiduciary who engaged in wrongful self-dealing, the test for equitable tolling is satisfied. The decision to toll the running of the limitations period, as well as the decision over how much tolling is equitable in any particular case, is committed, within wide limits, to the discretion of the trial judge.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Sheffield Steel Corp. v. HMK Enterprises, Inc. (In Re Sheffield Steel Corp.)