Quinby v. Conlan’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

41 federal appellate · 7 district · 93 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 235 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““But independently of this conclusion there is a general answer to the alleged erroneous rulings of the officers of the Land Department as grounds for the interference of the court. Those rulings were upon mere matters of fact, or upon mixed questions of law and fact, which were properly cognizable and determinable by the officers of that department. The laws of the United States prescribe with particularity the manner in which portions of the public domain may be acquired by settlers. They require .personal settlement upon the lands desired and their inhabitation and improvement, and a declaration of the settler’s acts and purposes to be made in the proper office of the district, within a limited time after the public surveys have been extended over the lands. By them a land department has been created to supervise all the various steps required for the acquisition of the title of the government. Its officers are required to receivq, consider, and pass upon the proofs furnished as to the alleged settlements upon the lands, and their improvement, when pre-emption rights are claimed, and, in case of conflicting claims to the same tract, to hear the contesting parties. The proofs offered in compliance with the law are to be presented, in the first instance, to the officers of the district where the land is situated, and from their decision, an appeal lies to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, and from, him to the Secretary of the Interior. 'For mere errors of judgment”

   5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. American Mortg. Co. of Scotland v. Hopper · United States v. Bush

2. ““It would lead to endless litigation and be fruitful of evil if a supervisory power were vested in the courts over the action of the numerous officers of the Land Department on mere questions of fact presented for their determination * * and we may also add in this connection, that the misconstruction of the law by the officers of the department, which will authorize the interference of the court, must be clearly manifest, and not alleged upon a possible finding of the facts from the evidence, different from that reached by them:””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Citizens' Trading Co. v. Bass · Brown v. Almasie

3. ““A settlement cannot be made upon public land already occupied. As against existing occupants, tbe settlement of another is ineffectual to establish a pre-emptive right. Such is the purport of our decisions in Atherton v. Fowler, 96 U. S. 513 , 24 L. Ed. 732 , and Hosmer v. Wallace, 97 U. S. 575 , 24 L. Ed. 1130 .””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Cowell v. Lammers · Cosmos Exploration Co. v. Gray Eagle Oil Co.