Hagood v. Southern’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

89 federal appellate · 34 district · 44 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 333 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[In Hagood,] the state of South Carolina, which was the party in interest, was not nominally a defendant. The nominal defendants were the treasurer of the state of South Carolina, its comptroller general, and the treasurers of its various counties and their successors in office. The object of the bills was to obtain on behalf of the complainants, by judicial process, the redemption by the state of certain scrip of which they were holders, according to the terms of a statute in pursuance of which it was issued, by the levy, collection, and appropriation of a special tax pledged to that purpose, as they claimed, by an irrepealable law constituting a contract protected from violation by the Constitution of the United States. The decrees of the circuit court granting the relief were-reversed, and the case remanded, with instructions to dismiss the bills, on the ground that the suits, though nominally against the officers of the state, were really against the state itself. In its opinion this court said, “These suits are accurately described as bills for the specific performance of a contract between the complainants and the state of South Carolina, who are the only parties to it. But to these bills the state is not in name made a party defendant, though leave is given to it to become such if it chooses; and except with that consent it could not be brought before the court, and be made to appear and defend. And yet it is the actual party to the alleged contract, the performance of”

   8 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. In re Ayers · McConnaughy v. Pennoyer

2. “A broad line of demarcation separates from such cases as the present, in which the decrees require, by affirmative official action on the part of the defendants, the performance of an obligation which belongs to the state in its political capacity, those in which actions at law or suits in equity are maintained against defendants who, while claiming to act as officers of the state, violate and invade the personal and property rights of the plaintiffs, under color of authority, unconstitutional and void.”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Pennoyer v. McConnaughy · Tindal v. Wesley

3. “It cannot be said, as a matter of law, that the contract is broken -until [the scrip] has been tendered for taxes due from a holder and been refused; nor that the -legal right of the holder is threatened unless he-is in a situation to make a present tender for that purpose. He has no legal right to have this scrip received for taxes, unless he owes taxes for which it is receivable; and in order that it may be used for the payment of the taxes of another, he must transfer it to the new holder, and that would divest himself of all right to enforce a contract to which he is no longer a party and in which he has ceased to have a legal interest.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. In re Ayers