Barry v. Edmunds’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

177 federal appellate · 102 district · 71 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 586 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “—“unless the court can clearly see that the jury have committed some very gross and palpable error, or have acted under some improper bias, influence, or prejudice, or have totally mistaken the rules of law, by which the damages are to be regulated” — that is, “unless the verdict is so excessive or outrageous,” with reference to all the circumstances of the case, “as to demonstrate that the jury have acted against the rules of law. or have suffered their passions, their prejudices, or their perverse disregard of justice to mislead them.””

   17 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Pacific Mutual Life Insurance v. Haslip · Honda Motor Co. v. Oberg

2. “* * * It might happen that the judge, on the trial or hearing of a cause, would receive impressions amounting to a moral certainty that it does not really and substantially involve a dispute or controversy within the jurisdiction of the court. But upon such a personal conviction, however strong, he would not be at liberty to act, unless the facts on which the persuasion is based, when made distinctly to appear on the record, create a legal certainty of the conclusion based on them. Nothing less than this is meant by the statute when it provides that the failure of its jurisdiction, on this account, `shall appear to the satisfaction of said Circuit Court'.”

   12 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Deputron v. Young · Wetmore v. Rymer

3. ““It is true, indeed, that in some cases it might appear as matter of law, from the nature of the case as stated in the pleadings, that there could not legally be a judgment recovered for the amount necessary to the jurisdiction, notwithstanding the damages were laid in the declaration at a larger sum. In the early case of Wilson v. Daniel, 3 Dall. 401 , 407, 1 L. Ed. 655 , decided in this court in 1798, under the judiciary act of 1789, then in force, it was declared by Chief Justice Ellsworth that: ‘The nature of the case must certainly guide the judgment of the court; and, whenever the law makes a rule, that rule must be pursued. Thus, in an action of debt on a bond for £100, the principal and interest are put in demand, and the plaintiff can recover no more, though he may lay his damages at £10,000. The form of the action, therefore, gives in that case the legal rule. But in an action of trespass, or assault and battery, where'the law prescribes no limitation as to the amount to be recovered, and the plaintiff has a right to estimate his damages at any sum, the damage stated in the declaration is the thing put in demand, and presents the only criterion to which, from the nature of the action, we can resort in settling the question of jurisdiction. The proposition, then, is simply this: Where the law gives no rule, the demand of the plaintiff must furnish one; but where the law gives the rule, the legal cause of action, and not the plaintiff’s demand, must be regarded.’ “The”

   7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Levinski v. Middlesex Banking Co. · Holden v. Utah & M. Machinery Co.