Hotel Richmond Corp. v. Commonwealth’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. “[W]e [do not] question the well-settled doctrine that a voluntary payment of money, under a mistake of law, lays no foundation for an action to recover back the money so paid. This principle, however, has, in our opinion, no application to a proceeding, like the present, under a statute which expressly provides that, when certain conditions are complied with, the citizen shall be refunded a tax paid by him which was erroneously assessed against him.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Harper v. Virginia Department of Taxation

2. “The statute in plain terms prescribes the conditions upon which the erroneous assessment shall be refunded, and it nowhere intimates that if the applicant for relief has paid the tax voluntarily he cannot have the same refunded. . . . The plaintiffs in error have complied with every requirement of the statute, and are, therefore, entitled to have the erroneous license tax paid by them . . . refunded.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Harper v. Virginia Department of Taxation

3. “The cases . . . cited in support of the contention that a tax voluntarily paid cannot be recovered back . . . are, in our opinion, not in conflict with the conclusion reached in the present case, where the erroneous tax which has been paid is restored to the aggrieved citizen by virtue of a plain statute, which provides that it shall be refunded.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Harper v. Virginia Department of Taxation