Wright v. Roseberry’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

59 federal appellate · 4 district · 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 278 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"The result of these decisions is that the grant of 1850 is one in praesenti, passing the title to the lands as of its date, but requiring identification of the lands to render the title perfect; that the action of the secretary in identifying them is conclusive against collateral attack, as the judgment of a special tribunal to which the determination of the matter is intrusted; but, when that officer has neglected or failed to make the identification, it is competent for the grantees of the state, to prevent their rights from being defeated, to identify the lands in any other appropriate mode which will effect that object."”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Chandler v. Calumet & Hecla Mining Co. · United States v. Lee Wilson & Co.

2. ““Under the Swamp Land Act the legal title passes only on delivery of the patent. So the statute in terms declares. The second section provides that the Secretary 6f the Interior, ‘at the request of said Governor’ [the Governor of the state], shall ‘cause a patent to be issued to the state, therefor; and on that patent the fee simple to said lands shall vest in the said state.’ ” — citing cases. “In this case the record discloses no patent, and therefore no passing of the legal title. Whatever equitable rights or title may have vested in the state, the legal title remained in the United States.””

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Rogers Locomotive Machine Works v. American Emigrant Co. · Sawyer v. Osterhaus

3. ““The controlling question, therefore, in this case, so far as the plaintiff is concerned. — and he must recover upon the strength of his own title, even if that of the defendant be defective — is whether,- under the circumstances disclosed by the record, the particular lands in controversy, in the absence of any selection and certification of them by the United States to the state, under the Swamp Land Act, can be shown by parol testimony to have been, in fact, at the date of that act, swamp and overflowed -lands. Congress, having made it the duty of the Secretary of the Interior to make out accurate lists and plats of the lands embraced by the Swamp Land Act, and transmit the sanje to the Governor of the state, and at the request of the latter to cause a patent to be issued to the state therefor, and having provided that ‘on that patent the fee simple to said lands shall vest in said state subject to the disposal of the Legislature thereof,’ did the title vest in the state, by virtue alone, and immediately upon the passage of the act, without any selection by or under the direction of the Department of the Interior, so that the state’s grantees could maintain an action to recover the possession of them?””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Rogers Locomotive Machine Works v. American Emigrant Co. · Sawyer v. Osterhaus