Shaver v. Williams’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

21 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. ““The conveyance or release of all the rights held by the complainant in and to the premises to the mortgagor and the execution and delivery of a new mortgage were simultaneous acts, and no intent was shown to change the relative rights of the parties by the change of the form of the security for the debt. It is a principle well established that equity always looks to the substance, and not to the form, of the transaction, to determine its validity. Under this rule no good reason can be shown why appellant should have priority. When he made the loan and accepted a mortgage the record disclosed the fact that appellee had a prior lien. This record was constructive notice to him and all others of appellee’s rights, and whatever interest he acquired in the premises was subordinate to that held by appellee. Appellant has in no manner here been misled or deceived; and under such circumstances to give him priority of lien, from the fact alone that appellee canceled of record one mortgage, no portion of his debt having been paid, and at the same time accepted another mortgage deriving no substantial advantage which he did not previously have, would be neither just nor equitable.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. v. Meridian Waterworks Co.