Westervelt v. Mohrenstecher’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

12 federal appellate · 5 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 22 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[I]t is essential to the safety and prosperity of banking institutions that the active officers, to whose integrity and discretion the moneys and property of the bank and its customers are intrusted, should be subject to immediate removal whenever the suspicion of faithlessness or negligence attaches to them. High credit is indispensable to the success and prosperity of a bank. Without it, customers cannot be induced to deposit their moneys. When it has once been secured, and then declines, those who have deposited demand their cash, the income of the bank dwindles, and often bankruptcy follows. It sometimes happens that, without any justification, a suspicion of dishonesty or carelessness attaches to a cashier or a president of a bank, spreads through the community in which he lives, scares the depositers, and threatens immediate financial ruin to the institution. In such a case it is necessary to the prosperity and success — to the very existence — of a banking institution that the board of directors should have power to remove such an officer, and to put in his place another, in whom the community has confidence. In our opinion, the provision of the act of congress to which we have referred was inserted, ex industria, to provide for this very contingency.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Wiersum v. U.S. Bank, N.A.

2. “dismiss such officers or any of them at pleasure.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Kroske v. US Bank Corp.