Smith v. Strickland’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

13 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 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““This section, above set out, cannot operate to bar in this case, because it had no reference to the right of an infant upon attaining majority or during infancy to defend his title to lands, where a voidable decree has been entered against him, and where a want of good faith has been shown on the part of those who assume to act for him while he was under disability. “Our construction of this section of the Code is that it was intended as a saving to a minor of his rights to have any decree rendered against him, subject to review within one year after attaining the age of twenty-one years, and to permit the minor to challenge under the decree any question affecting his interest which would be regarded as good cause. As, for instance, errors of fact as well as errors of law. The history of this statute is that it was enacted in order to prevent the. necessity for inserting in decrees a saving clause granting to minors the right to have the decree reviewed within a given period after he was twenty-one years of age. The statute was intended as a shield to the minor and not a sword to prevent his attacking a fraud perpetrated upon him, legal though it may he, independent of the statute.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Dendy v. Commercial Bank & Trust Co.