Dyson v. Simmons’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 6 district · 41 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 52 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The principle is now so well settled that it would seem to be beyond all question and controversy that if a party makes a mortgage, or affects to make one, but it proves to be defective, by reason of some informality or omission,'such as failure to record in due time, defective-acknowledgment, .or the like, though even by the omission of the mortgagee himself, as the instrument is at least evidence of an agreement to convey, the conscience of the mortgagor is bound, and it will be enforced by a court of equity. * * * As against the mortgagor himself, this proposition was never regarded as questionable; * • • but as against judgment creditors of the mortgagor, obtaining their judgments subsequent to the date of the mortgage, there was formerly some dispute. The question, however, both in England and in this state, has been long since settled; and the eases, without an exception, so far as we are informed, hold that a judgment, being but a general lien, must be subordinated to the superior equity of a prior specific lien, created by a defective mortgage or conveyance. Judgments create liens only because the land is made liable by statute to be seized and sold on execution; * * * but such lien secures to the creditor neither jus in re nor jus ad rem.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. In re Bowling Const. Corp.