Fitzgerald v. . Quann’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 federal appellate · 35 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 44 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Counsel for the defendant, in his argument before us, concedes the rule to be well established, and almost universally acted on, that statutes changing the common law must be strictly construed, and that the common law must be held no farther abrogated than the clear import of the language used in the statute absolutely requires. However much modern judges might sometimes be inclined to doubt the beneficial results to be derived from an always strict adherence to the rule, grounded upon some possible doubts of the high order of excellence in all cases of the common law, or of its being without exception the perfection of human reasoning in any other than a very narrow, technical, and one-sided way, yet the rule itself is too securely and firmly established and grounded in our jurisprudence to be altered other than by legislative interference.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. McDermon v. Southern Pac. Co.