Colwell v. Warner’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 district · 10 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 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ ‘In ordinary cases the mortgagor conveys to the mortgagee the title to real estate as security for a debt. There remains in the mortgagor the right to pay the debt, and thereby redeem the property mortgaged. The process of foreclosure cuts off this right, and vests the title absolutely in the mortgagee. The same thing is true of a second mortgage, which is but a mortgage of the equity of redemption. The whole equity is conveyed to the mortgagee, the same as the whole title is conveyed to the first mortgagee. The right remaining in the mortgagor is a right to redeem the equity of redemption. That right carries with it, as an incident to it, a right to redeem the first mortgage. Now when the second mortgagee forecloses the mortgagor, the whole equity of redemption vests in him, precisely as the whole estate vests in the first mortgagee after foreclosure, and he alone is entitled to redeem the first mortgage. The incidental right of redeeming the first mortgage goes with the thing to which it was an incident the right to redeem the second mortgage. The second mortgage conveys all the mortgagor’s interest to the mortgagee.’ ””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Smith v. Varney