Oregon Ry Nav Co v. Oregonian Ry Co’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 1 district · 55 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 93 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ One of the most important powers with which a corporation can be invésted is the right to sell out its whole property together with the franchises under which it is operated, or the authority to lease its property for a long term of years. In the case of a railroad company, these -privileges, next to the right to build and operate its railroad, would be the most important which could be given it, and this idea would impress itself upon the legislature. .Naturally, we would look for the authority to do these things in some express provision of law. "We would suppose that if the legislature saw fit to confer such rights, it would do so in terms which could not be misunderstood. To infer, on the contrary, that it either intended to confer them or to recognize that they already existed, by the simple use of the word ‘ assigns,’ a very loose and indefinite term, is a stretch of the power of the court in making implications which we do not feel to be justified.” 130 U. S. 30 . “ The object of the legislature in making the proviso to that statute was to make sure that the grant given to the Oregonian Company of terminal facilities,. as they are called, with the right to wharves, depots and'access to the river for the use of- the road, should never be separated by sale, assignment or otherwise from the road itself, and that into whosesoever hands the road went should also go the rights, powers and privileges conveyed by the grant.” 130 U. S. 32 .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Central Transportation Co. v. Pullman's Palace Car Co.

2. ““By a familar rule, every public grant of property, or of privileges or franchises, if ambiguous, is to be construed against the grantee, and in favor of the public, because an intention on the part of the government to grant the private persons, or to a particular corporation, property, or rights in which the whole public is interested, cannot be presumed, unless unequivocally expressed or necessarily to be implied in the terms of the grant, and because the grant is supposed to be made at the solicitation of the grantee, and to be drawn up by-him or by his agents, and therefore the words used are to be treated as those of the grantee; and this rule of construction is a wholesome safeguard of the interests of the-public against any attempt of the grantee, by tbe insertion of ambiguous language, to take what could not be obtained in clear and express terms.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Louisville Trust Co. v. City of Cincinnati

3. “as the just result of these.cases and on sound principle, that unless specially authorized by its charter, or aided by some other legislative action, a railroad company cannot, by lease or any other contract, turn over to another company, for a long period of time, its road and all its appurtenances, the use of its franchises and the exercise of its powers; nor can any other railroad company without similar authority make a contract to receive and operate such road, franchises and property of the first corporation; and that such a contract is not among the ordinary powers of a railroad company, and is not to be presumed from the usual grant of powers in a railroad charter.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Central Transportation Co. v. Pullman's Palace Car Co.