Litchfield v. Ballou’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

56 federal appellate · 5 district · 108 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 243 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “<fIt [the city] shall not become indebted; shall not incur any pecuniary liability. It shall not do this in any manner, neither by bonds, nor notes, nor by express or implied promises. Nor shall it be done for any purpose, no matter how urgent, how useful, how unanimous the wish. There stands the existing indebtedness • to a given amount in relation to the sources of payment as an impassable obstacle to the creation of any further debt, in any manner or for any purpose whatever. If this prohibition is worth anything, it is as effectual against. the implied as the express promise, and is as binding in a court of chancery as a court of law.””

   8 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Morton v. City of Nevada · City Water Supply Co. v. City of Ottumwa

2. ““No county, city, township, school district, or other municipal corporation shall be allowed to become indebted in any manner or for any purpose to an amount, including existing indebtedness, in the aggregate exceeding five per centum of tile value of tlio taxable property therein.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Morton v. City of Nevada · Geer v. School Dist. No. 11

3. “‘•But Here, also, the decree departs from what is now assorted to be the Xrrindple of the hill. Having- decreed an indebtedness where none can exisr. and declared that complainant has a lien on, not the ownership of. the waterworks, it directs a sale of the waterworks for the payment, of this debt and the satisfaction of this lien. Tf this he a mode of pursuing and reclaiming specific property into which money has been transmuted, it is a new mode. If the theory of appellee’s counsel he true, there is no lien on the property. There is no debt to be secured by a lien. That theory discards the idea of a debt, and pursues the money into the properly, and seeks the property, not as the property of the city to be sold to pay a debt, but as the property of complainant, into which his money, not the city’s, has been invested, for the reason that there was no debt created by the transaction. The money received on the bonds having been expended, with other funds raised by taxation, in erecting tile waterworks of the city, to impose the amount thereof as a lien upon these public works would be equally a violation of the constitutional prohibition, as to raise against the city an implied assumpsit for money had and received. The holders of The bonds and agents of the city are partieeps criminis in the act of violating that prohibition, and equity will no more raise a resulting trust in favor of the bondholders than the law will raise an implied assumpsit against a public policy so stron”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. O'Brien v. Wheelock