Chilton v. Brooks’s Empirical Analysis
1889
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 21 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 24 later decisions — most recently June 1988
3 federal appellate · 21 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.
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 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“All that was decided in those cases [Frostburg and Queen City, supra ] adversely to the power in the mortgages there involved, was that the power, being given to a corporation and to no one else, the power was void. It is necessary that someone capable of executing the power should be designated as authorized to execute it. For the want of such designation in [Queen City ] the 53 Md. case, the power was declared void; and in Lowdermilk’s Case in 50 Md., nothing was decided but the inability of a corporation to execute the trust given by the power. In 53 Md. [Queen City ] the assignees of the mortgage were not named as clothed with the power, whilst here they are, by express language, mentioned as authorized to execute it, and in the alternative a designated attorney is authorized to execute it. It is conceded that the attorney who is named could have executed the power, but it is insisted that as to the assigns of the grantee the power was void. We do not think that is a warranted inference from the cases cited. On the contrary, we think that, in the building association case in 53 Md., it is plainly intimated that where assignees of the corporation are named as authorized to sell they may execute the power, although their assignor could not have done so. The Court in that case says, “if any other person than the mortgagee or his assigns be intended by the parties to the mortgage to execute the power, he or they must be specially named in the power.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“It has frequently been decided, both in England and in this State, that a statute ought not to have a retroactive effect given to it, `unless its words are so clear, strong and imperative that no other meaning can be annexed to them, or unless the intention of the Legislature could not be otherwise satisfied; and especially ought this rule to be adhered to when such a construction would alter the pre-existing situation of the parties, and affect or interfere with their antecedent rights.'”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“The assignee, whoever he may be, (if not a corporation) may execute the power as if designated by name, while an attorney may do it only when specifically named. This seems to be the natural implication of the language used in 53 Md.; and we think those cases do not conflict in any degree with the view we now express in upholding the power in this case. We think the assignee may execute the power if the power so states.”
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.