The Bank of the United States v. Andrew Donnally’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

39 federal appellate · 16 district · 29 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 132 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The general principle adopted by civilized nations is, that the nature, validity, and interpretation of contracts, are to be governed by the law of the country where the contracts are made, or are to be performed. But the remedies are to be governed by the laws of the country where the suit is brought; or, as it is compendiously expressed, by the lex fori. No one will pretend, that because an action of covenant will lie in Kentucky, on an unsealed contract made in that State, therefore, a like action will lie in another State, where covenant can be brought only on a contract under seal. It is an appropriate part of the remedy, which every State prescribes to its own tribunals, in the same manner in which it prescribes the times within which all suits must be brought. The nature, validity, and interpretation of the contract may be admitted to be the same in both States; but the mode by which the remedy is to be pursued, and the time within which it is to be brought, may essentially differ. The remedy, in Virginia, must be sought within the time, and in the mode, and according to the descriptive characters of the instrument, known to the laws of Virginia, and not by the description and characters of it, prescribed in another State.”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Phipps v. Harding · Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System v. Phoenix International Software, Inc.

2. ““The statute of limitations of Virginia provides that ‘all actions of debt grounded upon any lending or contract without specialty shall be commenced and sued within five years next after the cause of such action or suit and not after.’ This being the language of the act, and confessedly governing the remedy in the courts of Virginia, the bar of five years must apply to all cases of contract which are without specialty, or, in other words, are not founded on some instrument acknowledged as a specialty by the law of that state. The common law being adopted in Virginia, and the word ‘specialty’ being a term of art of that law, we are led to the consideration whether the present note is deemed, in the common law, to be a specialty. And certainly it is not so deemed. It is not a sealed contract, nor does it fall under any other description of instruments or contracts or acts known in the common law as specialties. The argument does not deny this conclusion, but it endeavors to escape from its force by affirming that the note is a specialty according to the laws of Kentucky, and, if so, that this constitutes a part of its nature and obligation, and it ought everywhere else, upon principles of international jurisprudence, to be deemed of the like validity and effect. * * * But, whatever may be the legislation of a state as to the obligation or remedy on contracts, its acts can have no binding authority beyond its own territorial jurisdiction. Whatever authority they have in other s”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Brunswick Terminal Co. v. National Bank of Baltimore

3. “If, then, it were admitted, that the promissory note now in controversy, were a specialty by the laws of Kentucky, still it would not help the case, unless it were also a specialty, and recognised as such, by the laws of Virginia; for the laws of the latter must govern as to the limitation of suits in its own courts, and as to the interpretation of the meaning of the words used in its own statutes.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Heiman v. Bimbo Foods Bakeries Distribution Co.