Fagan v. Whidden’s Empirical Analysis
57 F.2d 631 · 1932
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently October 1996
4 federal appellate · 2 state decisions
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 Cunningham v. Brown · Bryan, as Admrx. Coconut Grove Bank Tr. Co. · Schumacher v. Harriett · Mallett v. Tunnicliffe, as Liquidator · Davis v. McNair
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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"That the officers of the bank have acted badly, and that for the damage caused by their fraudulent conduct they may be held personally to account, goes without saying. It is quite another thing, however, to say that the fraud of an officer of the bank, by which a depositor is prevented from carrying out a purpose to cease being a creditor of the bank converts him from a creditor of the bank into an owner of a specific amount of the bank's funds so that thereafter the bank is, as to that amount, not his debtor, but his trustee. * * * * * * "Attractive in its appeal and salutary in its operation as is the doctrine that equity will convert into a trustee ex maleficio one who has acquired property of another, and unlawfully converted it to his own use contrary to agreement, express or implied, it is essential to its application that the property of one has been so misapplied by another. * * * All that has been shown here is that the deceased loaned money to the bank on a savings account. Not only has no agreement changing the status of the account from a general to a special deposit been shown, but the testimony prevents the finding that appellees and the bank arrived at such an agreement as to it, for it shows that its very existence was, by denial, concealed from appellees. The fact of this deceit cannot change appellees from creditors of the bank to owners of its funds. The bank stands as to them just as it does to its other creditors, their debtor, not their trustee. Cunning”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“The judgment is reversed, with directions to dismiss the bill.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.