Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

deposit

Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court

Definitions from Case Law

From 291 U.S. 245 - Texas Pac Ry Co v. Pottorff · 1934Most cited · 379 citing opinions

The modern deposit grew out of the older form of deposit in which the fund was held separate and intact, and the sole purpose of the deposit was safe-keeping. Safe-keeping is still a very important function of deposit banking; and from the point of view of most depositors the chief one.

How the Supreme Court has restated “deposit”

1870188019001920194019601961 most cited: 291 U.S. 245 - Texas Pac Ry Co v. Pottorff (1934)
first stateddeparted

Each Supreme Court definition of “deposit,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.

How often courts cite the cases defining “deposit”

18701875190019251950197520002020261

Court decisions citing the 3 opinions that defined “deposit” — 860 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.

All 3 definitions, chronological · 1870–1961

  1. 1870·78 U.S. 369 - Bank v. Lanier[p3]· cited 126×
    ORIGINAL

    a deposit is nothing but a loan of money, and is within both the letter and spirit of the provision. It is well known that country banks keep on deposit in New York, with bankers and merchants, a considerable amount of money for their own convenience, for which they receive more or less of interest. But whether interest be obtained or not, these deposits are, equally with paper discounted over the counter of the bank, loans of money.

    bank

  2. where the remittance or 'payment' did not admit, but specifically denied, liability for, and was not intended to satisfy, the contested part of the assessment, but was, in effect, a mere deposit, 'in the nature of a cash bond for the payment of (so much, if any, of the contested) taxes (as might) thereafter (be) found to be due,' and was made for the sole purpose of staying—there being no other way to stay—an otherwise possible seizure and sale of the property for the contested tax while its validity was being honestly and diligently contested in the only way allowed by the law of the State, it will not do to say that the taxpayer has made an unconditional 'payment' in apparent 'satisfaction' of the contested part of an asserted matured tax liability, and thereby rendered it immediately accruable

    tax accrual