Purcell v. Summers’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

13 federal appellate · 3 district · 1 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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““This suit is brought by the general officers of the united church, suing for themselves and other members of that church, and is brought against the duly elected' representatives of the rival organization-as representative of that organization. The state court suits were brought by members and officers of local units of the church against persons formerly associated with those units who were setting up rival claims to local properties. At the time those suits were instituted there had' been no state or sectional organization of the persons seeking to appropriate the name-of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, but merely an attempt on the part of some-persons in local congregations to withhold the local properties from the -control' of the united church. Since they were-instituted, the dissident members have held a general meeting for the purpose of perpetuating the Methodist Episcopal' Church, South, as an organization separate- and distinct from the united church, and have formed an organization under the name of the South Carolina Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The defendants here are sued as members- and representatives of that organization. It is clear that no judgment entered in-any of the state suits could settle the broad, questions which plaintiffs seek to have settled in this suit in su-ch way as to be binding either upon the united church as a whole or upon the rival organization represented by defendants. Cf. Watson v. Jones, 13 Wall. 679 ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Purcell v. Summers

2. ““(1) For a declaratory judgment finding that the union of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and the Methodist Protestant Church was legal and valid, and that The Methodist Church is the legal successor to all of the properties and rights formerly held by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, including the sole and exclusive right to use the name ‘Methodist Episcopal Church, South.’ “(2) That a permanent * * * injunction * * *, may be issued restraining and enjoining the defendants, their associates, agents, and all those confederating with them from using the name ‘Methodist Episcopal Church, South’, or any name similar to that name, or any contraction of that name, or any synonym thereof, as the name of any church, religious society, "or other organization existing, or which may be organized or exist independent of The Methodist Church. “(3) That a permanent, * * * injunction, * * * may be issued restraining and enjoining the defendants, their associates and all those joining or confederating with them, from using the name or appellation ‘Southern Methodist Church’ as the name of any church, religious society or organization organized or existing, or which may be organized or exist independently of The Methodist Church.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Purcell v. Summers