Jones v. Williams’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

14 federal appellate · 88 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 120 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““This view of the law makes it necessary for us to determine whether or not the interest exactions shown in some of the statutes, past and present, for tax delinquencies are to be regarded as interest eo nomine, imposed and demanded by the state as compensation for the detention of money, or whether such interest exac-tions are penalties, and subject to the same legislative power. We have carefully considered the history of our tax legislation, from the first act of the Republic to the law here involved. On the whole, we have concluded that the impositions made for delinquency in rendering property for taxation, and for failure to pay taxes, whether these impositions are denominated ‘penalties,’ ‘interest,’ ‘forfeitures,’ or whether prescribed without definition or name, are all in reality penalties imposed for delinquency or failure of duty, and all enacted in aid of the state’s revenue, rather than as charges made by the state for the use or detention of its money. In other words, the exactions are ‘penalties’ rather than ‘interest’ in the commercial or statutory sense. * * * * * * “In the first place, impositions for failure to make returns of and pay occupation taxes and other business and special taxes have been from the beginning to the present time penalties, sometimes named as such, sometimes referred to as forfeitures or fines, sometimes as ‘double the amount of the tax,’ or defined in some other manner, but all so plainly penalties that we deem an analysis and discu”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Lally v. State · Irving Independent School District v. Packard Properties

2. ““The imposition of penalties is the means provided to prevent tax delinquencies, and since the word implies some form of punishment, it is obvious all legislation competent under the Constitution must he of that nature. Previous Constitutions contained no such term, and the evident purpose of the change in the Constitution of 1876 was to exclude from the legislative power the imposition of any exaction for failure to pay property taxes, except such as might come within the meaning of penalties and the rules of law applicable thereto.” L. c. top 2nd col. p. 136. (Court’s emphasis).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State v. Kingham

3. ““[W]hen a controversy finally reaches the courts for determination, the opinions of the Attorney Generals, rendered in due course, while entitled to careful consideration by the courts, and quite generally regarded as highly persuasive, are not binding on the judiciary, and it is our duty now to enter upon an independent inquiry as to the validity of the act before us.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Burton v. Rogers