Torrence v. Shedd’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

104 federal appellate · 80 district · 28 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 406 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““As this court has repeatedly affirmed, not only in cases of joint contracts, but in actions for torts, which might have been brought against all or against any one of the defendants, ‘separate answers by the several defendants sued on joint causes of action may present different questions for determination, but they do not necessarily divide the suit into separate controversies. A defendant has no right to say that an action shall be several which a plaintiff elects to make joint. A separate defense may defeat a joint recovery, but it cannot deprive a plaintiff of his right to prosecute his own suit to final determination in his own way. The cause of action is the subject-matter of the controversy, and that is for all the purposes of the suit, whatever the plaintiff declares it to be in his pleadings.’ ” Whitcomb v. Smithson, 175 U. S. 635 , 20 S. Ct. 248 , 44 L. Ed. 303 .”

   12 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Creagh v. Equitable Life Assur. Soc. of United States · Brown v. Coxe Bros.

2. ““But in order to justify such removal on the ground of a separate controversy between citizens of different states there must, by the very terms of the statute, be a controversy ‘which can be fully determined as between them’; and, by the settled construction of this section, the whole subject-matter of the suit must be capable of being finally determined as between, them, and complete relief afforded as to the separate cause of action without the presence of others originally made parties to the suit. ””

   6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. In re Ditch · Golden v. Bruning

3. “This was a bill of complaint filed by Samuel F. Engs, George Engs, and Henry Snyder, Jr. of the city, county, and state of New York, against Morris T. Martin and Carrie E. Martin, in the circuit court of Lake county in the state of Illinois, on the 27th of October, 1887. November 7, 1887, the defendants preferred a petition for the removal of the cause to the United States circuit court within and for the northern district of Illinois on the ground of diverse citizenship, and the case was transferred accordingly. The petition stated “that the controversy in said suit is between citizens of different states, and that the petitioners were at the time of the commencement of this suit, and still are, citizens of the state of Illinois, and that all the plaintiffs were then, and still are citizens of the state of New York.” Under the Act of Congress of March 3, 1887 (24 Stat. at L. 552, chap. 373,) it is the defendant or defendants who are nonresidents of the state in which the action is pending who may remove the same into the circuit court of the United States for the proper district. The defendants here were not entitled to such removal, and the decree, which was in favor of the complainants, and from which the defendants prosecuted this appeal, must be reversed for want of jurisdiction, with costs against the appellants, and the case remanded to the circuit court, with directions to render a judgment against them for costs in that court, and to remand the case to the state cour”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 486 F. Supp. 1012 - Young & Simon, Inc. v. Bernstein