United States v. Texas’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

128 federal appellate · 15 district · 98 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 374 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Section 3466 mentions no exception to its requirement that ‘the debts due to the United States shall be first satisfied.' It is nevertheless true that in several early decisions this Court read an exception into the section in the case of previously executed mortgages. Thelusson v. Smith, 2 Wheat. 396, 426 , 4 L.Ed. 271 ; Conard v. Atlantic Insurance Co., 1 Pet. 386 , 7 L.Ed. 189 ; Brent v. Bank of Washington, 10 Pet. 596, 611, 612 , 9 L.Ed. 547 . This doctrine seems to have been based on the theory that mortgaged property passes to the mortgagee and is no longer a part of the estate of the mortgagor. See Conard v. Atlantic Insurance Co., supra, 1 Pet. at pages 441-442, 7 L.Ed. 189 . The question of whether the priority of the United States under Section 3466 would also be defeated by a specific and perfected lien upon property, whose title remained in the debtor was reserved in those cases. Ibid. ; Brent v. Bank of Washington, supra, 10 Pet. at pages 611-612, 9 L.Ed. 547 . However, it was determined that a general judgment lien upon the lands of an insolvent debtor does not take precedence over claims of the United States unless execution of the judgment has proceeded far enough to take the land out of the possession of the debtor. Thelusson v. Smith, supra, 2 Wheat. at pages 425-426, 4 L.Ed. 271 . * * * “It was at pains to make clear, however, that it intended by its decision to lend no support to the assumption that the doctrine of the mortgage cases, whatever its current”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 84 F. Supp. 1 - Bank of Wrangell v. Alaska Asiatic Lumber Mills, Inc. · Industrial Commission v. United States

2. “Whenever any person indebted to the United States is insolvent, or whenever the estate of any deceased debtor, in the hands of the executors or administrators, is insufficient to pay all the debts due from the deceased, the debts due to the United States shall be first satisfied; and the priority established shall extend as well to cases in which a debtor, not having sufficient property to pay all his debts, makes a voluntary assignment thereof, or in which the estate and effects of an absconding, concealed, or absent debtor are attached by process of law, as to cases in which an act of bankruptcy is committed.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Scott & Gregg Real Estate Co. · 228 F. Supp. 115 - United States v. Mr. Hamburg Bronx Corporation

3. “realities require us to treat the proceeding as a general equity receivership * * *”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Stearns & Foster Company v. Pacific Bowling & Billiard Co.