Gray v. Elliott’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In the absence of bad faith or fraudulent intent it would seem to be difficult to distinguish a situation where an administrator deposits money in a bank in his name as administrator from a situation where he deposits the money in his individual name with the knowledge on the part of the bank that the money is held by him as administrator. In either case the money would be trust money as between the administrator and the beneficiary of the trust, but would not be a trust fund, that is to say, a special deposit, as between the bank and the beneficiary of the trust, in the absence of special circumstances making it so. A deposit made in a bank by A as administrator is, as we held in the original opinion, a general deposit in the absence of special circumstances. Why the deposit, if simply made in the name of A without the addition of the word 'administrator', should by that fact alone be transformed into a special deposit, is difficult to see. The addition of the word 'administrator' surely could not in the one case act as a magic formula to make the deposit general, and the absence of the same word could not, on the other hand, act as a magic formula to make the deposit special.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Martin v. Meyerheim

2. “The rights and equities of general depositors must then be considered, and the maxim that equality is equity should then, according to the great weight of authority, play a predominant part, and should not, in that event, make a favorite of the beneficiary of a trust, unless the deposit was a special deposit within the meaning of the rules recognized by law in such cases.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Martin v. Meyerheim