Cowdin v. Huff’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

25 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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““There are now, and were, at the adoption of our constitution, at least three modes in use of compensating persons engaged in the public service, viz., fees, salaries and wages. These modes are all different, each from the other; and the difference between them has been immemorially well understood. Fees are compensation for particular acts, or services, as the fees of clerks, sheriffs, lawyers, physicians, etc. Wages are the compensation paid, or to be paid, for services, by the day, week, etc., as of laborers, commissioners, etc. Salaries are the per annum compensation to men in official and some other situations. The word salary is derived from solarium, which is from the word sal, salt, being an article in which the Roman soldiers were paid. See [the dictionaries of] Richardson, Webster, Bouvier and Wharton. “Where the constitution does not provide otherwise, the-State may adopt either of these modes of compensating those-who may be in her service. But where that instrument does prescribe a mode, that mode must be followed.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Board of School Commissioners v. Wasson · City of Hammond v. Herman & Kittle Properties, Inc.