Harris v. Hanie’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 14 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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The deed from Hilliard Harris to Estes, for which the cotton obligations were given, is not set forth; and there is no allegation that a lien was retained upon the land to secure the delivery of the cotton. Was there an equitable vendor’s lien? That is created by equity, and is unknown at law. It arises to secure the payment of the purchase-money, but does not arise to secure the performance of any act, the breach of which performance would make a claim for unliquidated damages. In such eases it is -considered that the obligation for performance, with the legal right to damages on breach, is taken itself as payment. Whilst Courts of Equity will create the lien for amounts which are liquidated, they decline the double task of liquidating the damages and then declaring a lien in favor of parties who have not reserved one in the deed. This, though, sometimes questioned, and first held in very strong cases of obligations requiring great length of time for performance, has come now to be a recognizable principle, both in England and in those American States which have not rejected the doctrine of the vendor’s* lien altogether. Parrott v. Sweetland, 3 Mylne & Keene, 655; Brawley v. Catron, 8 Leigh [Va.] 522; Arlin v. Brown, 44 N. H. 102 ; Payne v. Avery, 21 Mich. 524 ; McCandlish v. Keen et al., 13 Grat. [Va.] 615.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Powers v. Johnson