King v. Guerra’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

57 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 58 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"But this exception is restricted in its application to cases in which the offending board acts in the absence of any fact or condition supporting or tending to support its conclusion in the matter acted upon. The judicial function in the excepted cases is limited to the inquiry as to whether there can be any controversy over the facts or conditions upon which the board acted, or which it could properly take into consideration in its deliberations. If such controversy is possible, if there can be any reasonable doubt concerning the existence or nonexistence of those facts or conditions or their effect upon the public good, then the courts are quite powerless or revise or disturb the action of the board. Sansom v. Mercer, 68 Tex., [488], 492, 5 S.W. 62 , 2 Am.St.Rep. 505 ; Riggins v. Richards [Tex.Civ.App.], supra. [ 79 S.W. 84 .] To paraphrase the language of Judge Gaines in the Sansom Case: "`If there is any controversy as to the existence of the facts upon which the board denied the requested permit, the function of the board was discretionary, and it cannot be compelled to grant the permit.' "Judge Key said in the Riggins Case that: `Human wisdom has never devised a system of government that did not vest final authority in one or more persons; and when that authority involves discretion, and has been exercised, the courts are powerless to grant relief, however unwisely or unjustly it may have been done.' 79 S.W. 86 ."”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Womack v. Berry

2. ““It is true, as a matter of course, that the friendly expressions obtained from the mayor and two commissioners, in private conversations — whether made casually, upon impulses of the moment and without definite knowledge or consideration of the true facts of the proposed projects, or whether given deliberately and after mature consideration of all the ascertainable facts — can have no bearing upon the case. Even had they been so disposed, which they deny is the case, those officials, acting singly, individually, and separately, at different places and times and upon different occasions, could not bind themselves in their official capacity, nor the board of city commissioners as a body, nor the government of the city, nor any of its departments. Those expressions, whether of casually friendly acquiescence, or of solemn promises, can have no more bearing upon the official matter of the issuance of the permit than would similar expressions from any private citizen wholly disconnected from the city government.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Driggs v. City of Denison

3. ““The extraordinary burden rests upon appellee to show that no conclusive, or even controversial or issuable, facts or conditions existed which would authorize the governing board of the municipality to exercise the discretion confided to it by a valid ordinance in determining a matter of purely governmental policy. * * * So, if it can be said that the evidence in this case raised the issue of the truth of any of the material facts upon which the board refused the permit, then a sufficient answer is that the board were the triers of those facts, and their finding was conclusive and may not be substituted by the finding of a jury.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Ray v. City of Dallas