Davis v. Flagg’s Empirical Analysis
1882
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 1 district · 24 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 33 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2018 · most notably Dickerman v. Northern Trust Co. (1900), Bitterman v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad (1907)
2 federal appellate · 1 district · 24 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Morris v. . Tuthill
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 33 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The legal pursuit of one's right, no matter what may be the motive *Page 439 of the promoter of the action, cannot be deemed either illegal or inequitable. In the present case, whatever the purpose of this second mortgagee may have been, he did no illegal act; the purchase of the first mortgage was legal and the prosecution founded on it was legal, and the consequence is that his suit cannot be stayed unless the rule is to be sanctioned that an assignee of a mortgage has no right to foreclose it, provided it be shown that, in obtaining such encumbrance, he was actuated by ill-will or other immoral feeling. The abstract precepts of the moral code, disconnected from property and the rights of persons, are neither enforced nor noticed by courts of law or by courts of equity.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The motives of the former owner of the mortgages in selling, or the plaintiffs in buying them, are not material, and the appellant has no concern with the consideration of the assignment. It is sufficient that the mortgage debt is due and is now owned by the plaintiff. He may have bought the mortgages from motives of malice toward the defendant and solely with a view to sue upon them, and the former owner from a like motive may have transferred them without consideration, but this would not constitute a defense to the action. The defendant can only arrest the action by paying the amount due, or tendering the same and bringing it into court. The facts stated do not constitute an equitable defense.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.