Unity v. Burrage’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

14 federal appellate · 4 district · 17 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 54 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ 'Special or private acts are rather exceptions than rules, being those which operate only upon particular persons and private concerns, such as the Romans entitled “senatus decreta,” in contradistinction to the "senatus consulta ” which regarded the whole community, and of these (which are not promulgated with the same notoriety as the former) the judges are not bound to take notice, unless they be formally shown and pleaded. Thus, to show the distinction, the Statute 13 Eliz. c. 10, to prevent spiritual persons from making leases for longer terms than twenty-one years, or their lives, is a public act, being a rule-prescribed to the whole body of spiritual persons in the nation; but an act to enable the Bishop of Chester to make a lease to A. B. for sixty years is an exception to this rule. It concerns only the. parties and the bishop’s successors, and is, therefore, a private actA 1 Wendell’s Blackstone, 86.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State Ex Rel. Roberts, Co. v. Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Co.