Mitchell v. St. Maxent's Lessee’s Empirical Analysis
71 U.S. 237 · 1866
Citation profile
13 federal appellate · 4 district · 11 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 42 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2011 · most notably Millard v. Roberts (1906), Defense Supplies Corporation v. Lawrence Warehouse (1949)
13 federal appellate · 4 district · 11 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 William Williams v. George Armroyd · United States v. Dashiel
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 42 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The solution of one question presented by the record is decisive •of this ease. Does the writ of fieri facias, tested and issued after the death of the party against whom the judgment is rendered, confer power on the ministerial officer to execute it? That St. Maxent was the owner of the lands in controversy at the time of his death, and the plaintiffs below are his heirs-at-law, is admitted; but it is claimed that the title was divested by certain proceedings in attachment against him in the courts of Florida, which ripened into a judgment while he was alive. It is a well-settled principle of law, which has often received' the sanction of this court, that the decree or judgment of a court having jurisdiction is binding until reversed, and cannot be collaterally attacked. But the defect in this case occurs after the judgment, and is fatal to Mitchell’s title, for purchases at a judicial sale are not protected, if the execution on which the sale was made was void. Yoid process confers no right on the officer to sell, and all acts done under it are absolute nullities. ’ ’”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““The writ of fieri facias, on which Mitchell rests his title, was tested after the death of St. Maxent, and, according to a familiar rule of the common law, it was therefore void. The death of a defendant before the test of an execution compels the plaintiff to sue out a writ of scire facias, for the ‘alteration of the person alteroth the process’.””
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.