Peyton v. Desmond’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

11 federal appellate · 4 district · 11 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 35 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““By the common law of England an action for the recovery of damages for the injury to land is local, and can be brought only where the land is situated. This is ,the law in most ot' the' states of the Union. Chilly, Pd. 281; Shipman, Com. Pl. (2d Ed.) 201, 380; Cooley on Torts, 471; Livingston v. Jefferson, 15 Fed. Cas. 660, No. 8,411; McKenna v. Fisk, 1 How. 241 , 11 L. Ed. 117 ; Ellenwood v. Marietta Chair Co., 158 U. S. 105 , 15 Sup. Ct. 771 , 39 L. Ed. 913 . The operation of this common-law rule has been much restricted by legislation in England (British South Africa Co. v. Compania de Mocambigue [1893] App. Cas. 602), and in some of the slates (15 Fed. Cas. 665 note, Genin v. Grier, 10 Ohio, 209 , 214). There are some states in which the rule never prevailed. Holmes v. Barclay, 4 La. Ann. 63 . The matter is essentially one of state policy or local law. As was said by Mr. Justice Gray in Huntington v. Attrill, 146 U. S. 657 , 669, 13 Sup. Ct. 224 , 228 ( 36 L. Ed. 1123 ): ‘Whether actions to recover pecuniary damage for trespass to real estate * * * are purely local or may be brought abroad depends upon the question whether they are viewed as relating to the real estate or only as affording a personal remedy. * * * And whether an action for trespass to land in one state can be brought in another state depends on the view which the latter state takes of the nature of the action.’ In Minnesota an action for pecuniary damages for trespass to real estate in another state is v”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Kentucky Coal Lands Co. v. Mineral Development Co.

2. ““It conclusively appears, as before shown, that the timber was severed from the land after the initiation and during the maintenance of the plaintiff’s homestead claim; in other words, while he had a conditional or inchoate light to the land, which was capable of perfection through compliance with the homestead law, and which in due course ripened into a full, legal, and equitable title before the commencement of this action. This conditional or inchoate right included an exclusive right to the possession so long as the plaintiff! should comply in good faith with the requirements of the law controlling homestead claims, and included a further right to earn and receive the title. This right to the possession and to earn and receive the title extended to everything which was part of the land—timber as well as soil. The severance of the timber from the soil was a violation or infraction of the plaintiff’s right to the possession, and of his right to earn and receive the title. It was an injury to both. It may be that the conditional or inchoate right of a homestead claimant is subject to a power in Congress to terminate it in whole or in part—as to the land or only as to the timber—at any time before it is perfected into a vested equitable estate by full compliance with the requirements of the law; but it is not terminable or subject to impairment by third persons.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Cloquet Lumber Co. v. Burns

3. ““From what has been said, it is clear that the defendants are liable to the plaintiff or to the United States for the conversion of the timber, and that their only lawful concern is that they be made to respond only to the rightful claimant.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Inman-Poulsen Lumber Co.