Jackson v. Ludeling’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

70 federal appellate · 8 district · 53 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 218 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““When two or more persons have a common Interest In a security, equity will not allow one to appropriate it exclusively to himself, or to impair its worth to the others. Community of interest involves mutual obligation. If, e», g., a corporation issue many bonds, and give a mortgage on all its estate» to secure them, one holder of the bonds, admitting that ho has a right to make use of the mortgage to enforce the payment of the bonds which he holds, has no right to employ it as an instrument by which he may become the owner of the property mortgaged at the lowest price at which it can be obtained, leaving the bonds held by his associate holders unpaid. His duty, if he uses it at all, is to make it productive of the most that can be obtained for all who are interested in it, and if he seek to make a profit out of it at the expense of those whose rights in it were the same as his own, he is guilty of fraud.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Bound v. South Carolina Ry. Co. · Wolcott v. National Electric Signaling Co.

2. ““Managers and officers of a company where capital is contributed in shares are, in a very legitimate sense, trustees alike for its stockholders and its creditors, though they may not be trustees technically and in form. They accordingly have no right to seek their own profit at the expense of the company, its shareholders, or even its bondholders.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Dawson v. National Life Insurance Co. of America · Stewart v. Harris

3. ““They (the directors) had no right to enter into or participate in a combination, the object of which was to divest the company of its property and obtain it for themselves at a sacrifice, or at the lowest price possible. They had no right to seek their own profit at the expense of the company, its stockholders, or even its bondholders. Such a course was -forbidden by their relation to the company. It was their duty, to the extent of their power, to secure for all those whose interests were in their charge the highest possible price for the property which could be obtained for it at the sheriff’s sale. They could not rightfully place themselves in a position in which their interests became adverse to those of either the stockholders or bondholders. * * * The defendants can take nothing from such a sale, thus made. Were we to sustain it, we should sanction a great moral and legal wrong, giving encouragement to faithlessness to trusts, and confidence reposed, and countenance combinations to wrest by the forms of law from the uninformed and confiding their just rights.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State Bank v. Idaho-Oregon Light & Power Co.