Thurber v. Miller’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

9 federal appellate · 9 district ·

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

1. ““This is an ordinary suit in equity to foreclose a mortgage on real estate. The bill makes the heirs and executors of the mortgagor and the creditors of the mortgagor having, or claiming to have, liens on the mortgaged premises, defendants; alleges the amount of the mortgage debt; that default has been made in payment thereof; and prays for a decree for the amount of the debt, and for the sale of the mortgaged premises to satisfy the same. The creditors of the mortgagor having liens on the mortgaged premises are made defendants for the purpose of barring their equity of redemption, and as to them the allegation of the bill is as follows: ‘Plaintiff further states, on informa tion and belief, that the defendants Addison W. Hastie, Fred T. Evans, Lawrence county, and the city of Deadwood have, or claim to have, some interest in or lien upon said mortgaged promises, or some part thereof, which interest or lien, if any, has accrued subsequently to the lien of said mortgage.’ A hill i'or a foreclosure of a mortgage which asks for a decree for the amount of the mortgage debt, and the sale of the mortgaged premises to satisfy the same, and alleges that the lien of the complainant’s mortgages is prior and superior to the liens of some of the defendants named in the bill, presents but a single cause of action. The ascertainment of the relative rank of the liens is incidental to the main purpose of the suit. ‘The cause of action is the subject-matter of the controversy, and that is, fo”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Weldon v. Fritzlen

2. ““There is another fact disclosed by the record equally fatal to the jurisdiction of the circuit court. The plaintiff in the action is a citizen of New York, and the defendant Evans, on whose petition the suit was removed from the state to the circuit court, is a citizen of South Dakota, — the state in which the suit was brought. The removal of suits upon the ground that they involve separate controversies was first provided for by the act of July 27, 1866 ( 14 Stat. 306 , c. 288). That act gave the right of removal to ‘the defendant who is a citizen of a state other than that in which the suit is brought.’ The provision of the act of 1866, that the defendant authorized to remove a suit upon the ground of a separable controversy must be a citizen of a state other than that in which the suit was pending, was in harmony with the rule that had always obtained with reference to the citizenship of a defendant in removing a cause from a state to a federal court. Under the judiciary act of 1789 ( 1 Stat. 73 , c. 20, § 12), a defendant sued in a court of his own state by a citizen of another state could not remove the suit. It was only when the defendant was sued in the courts of a state of which he was not a citizen that he could remove the suit to the circuit court.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Smith v. Voss Oil Co.