Henley v. Hotaling’s Empirical Analysis
1871
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 52 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 57 later decisions — most recently May 2013 · most notably 24 Cal. 2d 1 - Beeler v. American Trust Co. (1944), Couts v. Winston (1908)
2 federal appellate · 52 state decisions — followed in 18 states
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 Marshall v. Shafter · Sears v. Dixon
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 57 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““ There is one fact which is indispensable for this pur pose. A mortgage is a security for the performance of an agreement, which is usually to pay a sum of money. Leaving out of view other agreements than those for the payment of money, it is essential that there be an agreement, either expressed or implied, on the part of the mortgagor, or some one in whose behalf he executes the mortgage, to pay to the mortgagee a sum of money. If there is no debt, there is no mortgage.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage““There can be no question that a party may make a purchase of lands either in satisfaction of precedent debt or for a consideration then paid, and may at the same time contract to reconvey the lands upon the payment of a certain sum, without any intention on the part of either party that the transaction should be, in effect, a mortgage. There is no absolute rule that the covenant to reconvey shall be regarded, either in law or equity, as a defeasance. The covenant to reconvey, it is true, may be one fact, taken in connection with other facts, going to show that the parties really intended the deed to operate as a mortgage; but standing alone, it is not sufficient to work that result. The owner of the lands may be willing to sell at the price agreed upon, and the purchaser may also be willing to give his vendor the right to repurchase upon specified terms; and if such appears to be the intention of the parties, it is not the duty of the court to attribute to them a different intention. Such a contract is not opposed to public policy, nor is it in any sense illegal; and courts would depart from the line of their duties should they, in disregard of the real intention of the parties, declare it to be a mortgage.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.