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choses in action

Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court

Definitions from Case Law

From 280 U.S. 204 - Farmers Loan & Trust Co. v. Minnesota · 1930Most cited · 580 citing opinions

Debts owing by corporations, like debts owing by individuals, are not property of the debtors in any sense; they are obligations of the debtors, and only possess value in the hands of the creditors. With them they are property, and in their hands they may be taxed. All the property there can be in the nature of things, in debts of corporations, belongs to the creditors, to whom they are payable, and follows their domicil, wherever that may be. Their debts can have no locality separate from the parties to whom they are due.

How often courts cite the case defining “choses in action”

192019401960198020002020330

Court decisions citing the opinion that defined “choses in action” — 580 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining case 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.