Youngs v. Adams’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 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 7 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “‘ ‘ The foregoing instruction was elaborated and applied to the question in the case, and, in our opinion, made it plain that the defendant should not be found guilty if the' circumstances showed that the words ought not to have been understood in their ordinary sense. This charge follows the rule laid down in Ellis v. Whitehead, 95 Mich. 105 , where a similar question was considered.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Line v. Spies · Burkhiser v. Lyons

2. ““ Explanatory circumstances, known to all of the parties, speakers and hearers, are to be taken into account, then, as a part of the words. * * * The test in such case is the knowledge possessed by those to whom the language is published. The question now is not what the defendant meant by the words he spoke, but what reasonable men, hearing the words, would understand them to mean.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Line v. Spies