Williams v. Weaver’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 9 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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The' Court of Appeals, in its opinion, conceding the assessment to be in many respects erroneous and to the prejudice of plaintiff, holds that, in the absence of fraud or intentional wrong, the defendants were not personally liable in damages for any error in the assessment! Whether that court decided that question correctly or not, it is not a Federal question, but one of general municipal law, to be governed either by the common law or the statute law of the State. In either case it presents no question on which this court is authorized to review the judgment of a státe court. That, decision is also conclusive of the whole case. If the defendants, in assessing property for taxation, incur no personal liability for any error they may commit, the fact that the error consisted in a misconstruction of an act of Congress can make no difference. An officer whose duty personally, as the Court of Appeals of New York holds, is mainly judicial, is no more liable for a mistaken construction of an act of Congress than he would be for mistaking the common law or a state statute.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Tyler v. Cass County