United States v. McLaughlin’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 2 district · 9 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 51 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““It is in tlie option of tlie government, not of the grantee, to locate the quantity granted; and, of course, a grant by the government of any part of the territory contained within the outside limits of the grant only reduces by so much the area within which the original grantee’s proper quantity may be located. If the government has the right to say where it shall be located, it certainly has the right to say where it shall not be located; and, if it sells land to a third person at a place within the general territory' of the original grant, it is equivalent to saying that the quantity due to the original grantee is not to be located there. In other words, if the territory comprehended in the outside limits and bounds of a Mexican grant contains 80 leagues, and the' quantity granted is only 10 leagues, the government may dispose of 70 leagues without doing any wrong to the original grantee.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Carr v. Quigley · United States v. Oregon & C. R.

2. ““The opinion, however, examined somewhat at large the grounds on which it should be held that Mexican grants (whether valid or invalid), while under judicial consideration, should be treated as reserved lands. The principal reason was that they were not ‘public lands,’ in the sense of congressional legislation; those terms being habitually used to describe such lands as are subject to sale or other disposal under general laws. The Pacific Railroad acts of 1862 and 1864 only granted, in aid of the railroads to be constructed under them, ‘every alternate section of public land * * * not sold, reserved, or otherwise disposed of by the United States, and to which a pre-emption or homestead claim may not have attached at the time the line of said road is definitely fixed.’ The lands comprised in a Mexican grant, it was held, must be regarded, not as ‘public lands,’ but as ‘reserved lands,’ because, by the treaty with Mexico, all private property was to be respected. And when the act of March 3, 1851, created a board of commissioners to examine all claims to Mexican grants, the thirteenth section declared ‘that all lands the claims to which have been finally rejected by the commissioners in the manner herein provided, or which shall be finally decided to be invalid by the district or supreme court, and all lands the claims to which shall not have been presented to the commissioners within two years after the date of this act, shall be deemed, held, and considered as part of the pub”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Apis v. United States

3. “that Indian reservations and reservations for military and other public purposes of the government should be considered as absolutely reserved and withdrawn from that portion of the public lands which are disposable to purchasers and settlers, for, in those cases, the use to which they are devoted, and for which they are deemed to be reserved, extends to every foot of the reservation. The same reason applies to Mexican grants of specific tracts, such as a grant for all the land within certain definite boundaries named, or all the land comprised in a certain rancho or estate. But this reason does not apply to grants of a certain quantity of land, within, a territory named or described, containing a much larger area than the amount granted, and where, as in the present case, the right of location within the larger territory is in the government, and not in the grantee. In such case, the use does not attach to the whole territory, but only to a part of it, and to such part .as the government chooses to designate, provided the requisite quantity be appropriated.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Carr v. Quigley