City Bank Farmers Trust Co. v. McGowan’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

51 federal appellate · 12 district · 18 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 152 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The issue is a narrow one. Literally Mrs. Vail neither made the transfers nor did she have any motive with respect to them. But a court stood in her place and unquestionably had the function of effectuating a transfer of her property and of determining what motive or purpose would have actuated her had she been competent to act. It seems to us that it is sticking in the bark to say that, in the circumstances, the transfers are not within the section because Congress did not add a phrase to the effect that where a court made the transfer, acting in lieu of the incompetent owner, such a transfer should be governed by the statute. We hold, therefore, that where, as in New York, the court is to substitute itself as nearly as may be for the incompetent, and to act upon the same motives and considerations as would have moved her, the transfer is, in legal effect, her act and the motive is hers.”

   6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Harris v. Commissioner · Estate of Himmelstein v. Commissioner

2. “whether the thought of death is the impelling cause of the transfer.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Estate of J. Fred Lohman v. Commissioner