Johnson v. Williams’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

126 federal appellate · 13 district · 5 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 253 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “A judgment is normally said to have been rendered “on the merits” only if it was “delivered after the court ... heard and evaluated the evidence and the parties’ substantive arguments.” And as used in this context, the word “merits” is defined as “[t]he intrinsic rights and wrongs of a case as determined by matters of substance, in distinction from matters of form.” If a federal claim is rejected as a result of sheer inadvertence, it has not been evaluated based on the intrinsic right and wrong of the matter.”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Ray v. Bauman · Balsavage v. Wetzel

2. “must determine what arguments or theories supported or ... could have supported [ ] the state court's decision;”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Murray v. Schriro · 135 S. Ct. 2126 - Hittson v. Chatman

3. “That presumption of finality ... disappears whenever the record shows that the court did not pass upon the merits but dismissed the bill because of want of jurisdiction, for want of parties, because the suit was brought prematurely, because the plaintiff had a right to file a subsequent bill on the same subject-matter, or on any other ground not going to the merits.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 166 F. Supp. 3d 948 - Stein v. Regions Morgan Keegan Select High Income Fund, Inc.