Ehrhardt v. Hogaboom’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 federal appellate · 4 district · 20 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 69 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The controlling question, therefore, in this case, so far as the plaintiff is concerned. — and he must recover upon the strength of his own title, even if that of the defendant be defective — is whether,- under the circumstances disclosed by the record, the particular lands in controversy, in the absence of any selection and certification of them by the United States to the state, under the Swamp Land Act, can be shown by parol testimony to have been, in fact, at the date of that act, swamp and overflowed -lands. Congress, having made it the duty of the Secretary of the Interior to make out accurate lists and plats of the lands embraced by the Swamp Land Act, and transmit the sanje to the Governor of the state, and at the request of the latter to cause a patent to be issued to the state therefor, and having provided that ‘on that patent the fee simple to said lands shall vest in said state subject to the disposal of the Legislature thereof,’ did the title vest in the state, by virtue alone, and immediately upon the passage of the act, without any selection by or under the direction of the Department of the Interior, so that the state’s grantees could maintain an action to recover the possession of them?””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Rogers Locomotive Machine Works v. American Emigrant Co. · Sawyer v. Osterhaus

2. “In that case parol evidence to show that the-land covered by a patent to Missouri under the act was not swamp and overflowed land, was held to be inadmissible. On the same principle, parol testimony to show that the. land covered by a patent of- the United States to a settler under the preemption laws was such swamp and overflowed land must be held to be inadmissible to defeat the patent. It is the duty of the Land Department, of which the Secretary is the head, to determine whether land patented to a settler is .of the class subject to settlement under the preemption laws, and his judgment as to this fact is not open to contestation in an action at law by a mere intruder without title. ‘As was said in the case cited of the patent to the State, it may be said in this case of the patent to the preemptioner, it would be a departure from sound principle and contrary to well-considered judgments of this court to .permit, in such action, the validity of the patent to be subjected to-the test of the verdict of a jury on oral testimony.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Wright v. Roseberry · Chandler v. Calumet & Hecla Mining Co.

3. “a simple intruder, without claim or color of title. He was, therefore, in no position to call in question the validity of the patent of the United States, . . . and requjre the plaintiff to vindicate the action of the officers of the Land Department in issuing it.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Wright v. Roseberry · Doolan v. Carr