Cunningham v. Ashley’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 1 district · 19 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 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““In view of tliis provision of the statute, it becomes unnecessary to inquire into what is the nature of the title of an administrator, either as to the lands or goods of his intestate, or whether he can be properly said to have in himself any title whatever to either. The principle of law upon which the estoppel rests has reference to the fact that in the former action the hostile titles were directly opposed before the court rendering the former judgment, and that the superiority of the one over the other was ascertained and fixed by that judgment. That an administrator appearing in an action involving the interests of the estate represents as well the heirs as the creditors of the deceased is well settled. But he represents, not"only the interests of heirs and creditors, but also the title which the deceased had at the time of his death. When, therefore, in an action of ejectment, an administrator, seeking to recover the real estate of his intestate, .alleges upon the record the seisin of that intestate, he thereby tenders an issue directly upon the title of the premises. If issue be joined by the defendant upon this point, and judgment be rendered, it is necessarily an adjudication that the title of the intestate was or was not superior to the title set up, or which might have been set up, by the defendant in the action. Title is the means by which the right to possess property is made to appear. The authority conferred and the duty expressly imposed by statute upon the a”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Hearfield v. Bridges

2. ““The title upon which he [the administrator] is to recover is not his own title, nor that of the heirs or the creditors he represents, but the title of the intestate. The seisin upon which he must rely is the seisin which the deceased had at the time of his death. It is that title and that seisin which is put in issue, and the sufficiency of which is determined by the judgment rendered in the action. If the judgment be in favor of tlie administrator, it amounts to an adjudication that the title of the deceased, represented by the administrator, is superior to that upon which the defendant relies; and such a judgment would, upon that point, estop the defendant or his privies in a subsequent action brought for the recovery of the same premises in favor of the administrator, or the heirs, after distribution made, or in favor of any person who had subsequently succeeded to that title or to the right to assert it in court. All these consequences necessarily flow from the statutory right of the administrator to sue for the recovery of the estate of the deceased; otherwise, there is the anomaly of an action brought, and a judgment rendered upon the issue joined, by which judgment, however, nothing is, in effect, determined, and no one concluded.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Lloyd v. Ball