United States v. Maxwell Land-Grant Co’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 federal appellate · 12 district · 47 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 103 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ We take the general doctrine to be that when in a court of equity it is proposed to set aside, to annul, or to correct a written instrument for fraud or mistake in the execution Of the instrument itself, the testimony on which this is done must be clear, unequivocal, and convincing, and that it cannot be done upon a bare preponderance of evidence which leaves the issue in doubt. If the proposition, as thus laid down in the cases cited, is sound in regard to the ordinary contracts of private individuals, how much more should it be observed where the attempt is to annul the grants, the patents, and other solemn evidences of title emanating from the government of the United States under its official seal. In this class of cases the respeet due to a patent, the presumptions that all the preceding steps required by the law had been observed before its issue, the immense importance and necessity of the stability of titles dependent upon these official instruments, demand that the effort to set them aside, to annul them, or to correct mistakes in them, should only be successful when the allegations on which this is attempted are clearly stated, and fully sustained by proof. ””

   5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Montana Cent. Ry. Co. v. Migeon · United States v. Missouri, K. & T. Ry. Co.

2. “But whether, as a matter of fact, this was a grant, not limited in quantity, by the Mexican decree of 1824, or whether it was ;a grant which in strict law would have been held by the Mexican government, if it had continued in the ownership of the property, to have been subject to that limitation, it is not necessary to decide at this time. By the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, under which the United States acquired the right of property in all the public lands of that portion of New Mexico which Avas ceded to this country, it became its right, it had the authority, and it engaged itself by that treaty to confirm valid Mexican grants. If, therefore, the great surplus Avhich it is claimed was conveyed by its patent to Beaubien and Miranda was the property of the United States, and Congress acting in its sovereign capacity upon the question of the validity of the grant, chose to treat it as valid for the boundaries given to it by the Mexican governor, it is not for the judicial department of this government to controvert their poAver to do so;”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Maxwell Land-Grant Case · Interstate Land Co. v. Maxwell Land Grant Co.

3. “2 “That the private land claims in the Territory of New Mexico, as recommended for confirmation, by the surveyor-general of that Territory, and in his letter to the commissioner of the general land office, of the twelfth of January, eighteen hundred and fifty-eight, designated as numbers one, three, four, six, eight, nine, ten, twelve, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen and eighteen, and the claim of E. W. Eaton, not entered on the corrected list of numbers,, but standing on the original docket and abstract returns of the surveyor-general as number sixteen, be and they are hereby confirmed”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Catron v. Laughlin