Mode v. Beasley’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

46 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 47 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Nearly every legislature, if not every one, from that time [1868] to the present has been passing acts that were strictly local under titles and enacting clauses purporting to make them general in their operation throughout the state. A conspicuous example of this class of acts is what is generally known as the ‘Charter of Indianapolis,’ approved March 6, 1891. But the city of Indianapolis is not named in the act. Both the title and the body thereof purport to make the act general, and of uniform operation throughout the state, by providing ‘that all cities of this state which had a population of more than 100,000 inhabitants, as shown by the last preceding United States census, shall hereafter be governed by the provisions of this act.’ And then follows the balance of the first section and the other 134 sections of the act, all of which are expressly confined in their operation to the city of Indianapolis by the. part of section 1 above quoted, as if the city of Indianapolis had been named as the only place where said act was ever to have any operation or effect whatever. It is to be noted that the act is confined to cities which had a population of more than 100,000 inhabitants as shown by the last preceding United States census. This and all courts in the state judicially know, and the legislature knew, that the city of Indianapolis was the only city in the state at the passage of the act that the last census report showed had more than 100,000 inhabitants. ' And, no matt”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Central Trust Co. of New York v. Citizens' St. R.