Salmon v. Richardson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 15 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 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The defendant Richardson claims that the publication complained of is charged to have been made by the defendants acting as directors of the insurance company, and that no action can be maintained against them for anything done by them while acting in that capacity. We will not stop now to inquire whether, upon the true construction of this count, the false and fraudulent publication complained of is charged to have been made by the defendants when acting in their official or in their personal character, because we think that the law regarding the defendants’ liability, in any aspect of it, is not as the defendants claim. * * * Directors of a corporation, in the management of its affairs, are the power which gives expression to its will, but it is no part of their duty to perpetrate crimes or frauds in its name or for its benefit; and, whatever the liability of the corporation may be, the individuals who, under cover of their office as directors, commit frauds like those charged against these defendants, ought to be, and in our judgment are, upon the clearest principles of law and justice, accountable for their eonduet in a civil action at the suit of the injured party. It is true that the contract of insurance was made with the corporation, and not with the directors, and that no suit could be maintained upon that contract against such directors, whatever agency they may have had in making it. It was the contract of the corporation, and not of its directors, and there was t”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Prescott v. Haughey

2. ““Directors of a corporation in the management of its affairs are the power which gives expression to its will/but it is no part of their duty to perpetrate crimes or frauds in its name or for its benefit, and whatever the liability of the corporation may be, the individuals who under cover of their office of directors commit frauds like those charged against these defendants ought to be, and in our judgment are, upon the clearest principles of law and justice, accountable for their conduct in a civil action at the suit of the injured party. ... It may sometimes be difficult to prove the actual participation of individual directors in the acts complained of, but the legal principle which subjects them when discovered is not affected by such contingency.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State ex rel. Kropf v. Gilbert