Morrow v. White’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 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 2 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “At the time of the Louisiana Purchase this area was a vast wilderness, sparsely populated and with no integrated system of land descriptions. Early in the nineteenth century Congress authorized the General Land Office to survey and plat the entire area in order to give each parcel of land in the public domain a specific and identifiable location which would be subject to relocation by survey at any time. The field notes and plats of those surveys are carefully preserved and with few exceptions all lands in this area were disposed of by the Federal Government with reference to these surveys. Due to errors which were bound to occur, these surveys did not always result in perfect square mile sections of 640 acres with parallel boundaries. Survey parties did not always meet at the point previously calculated and some of the established section corners did not-coincide with adjoining ones. These approved GLO surveys formed the basis for the description of lands when disposed of by the government and any errors, including variances from prescribed courses, distances of acreages, were merged into the government grants. A patent or other original conveyance made with reference to a subdivision conveyed those lands which the General' Land Office Plat showed it to contain. The purpose of subsequent surveys in locating corners and boundaries is not to correct any error or variance of the original surveyor but is to retrace his steps by use of his field notes and plats and to locate the ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Barton v. Brockinton