State v. Gerhardt’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 229 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 230 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Neither by its title nor -by its terms does it expressly profess to be amendatory of any statute. Its title indicates it to be a distinct and original enactment; and while it is true that it refers to existing laws, relating to the granting of a license, and has a bearing upon the same, and may result in modifying or amending certain parts thereof by implication, still, this, in reason, cannot be said to bring it within the mischief which the provision of the Constitution referred to was designed to prohibit. . . . With equal force might the authority of the legislature be denied to enact a general law, limiting the time of taking appeals to this Court to six months, thereby changing or amending by implication the law as it now exists relative to the time for taking such appeals. Such a statute might with the same consistency be attacked for the same reason, namely that the existing statute, which it amended or modified by implication, should have been published at length as amended. Surely such a contention could not be sustained. It is true that some portions of the act in question operate upon persons who are exercising rights under the Act of 1875, and to that extent only it depends upon the latter law, but this fact manifestly would not bring it within the objections urged by counsel for appellee. Again upon another view of the question, it may be said, that the legislature, by a long continued and unquestioned practice in the passage of laws which in effect modified or”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Pike County Coal Corp. v. Industrial Board

2. ““Each of these acts might be said to be as amendatory of the original and existing laws upon the same subject as is the statute in controversy. This continued and repeated practice of the legislature, unquestioned for a period of over forty years, becomes a potent factor and lends much strength to an interpretation of the constitution favoring the authority of the general assembly to enact, in the manner it did, the law under consideration. Were we in doubt of this legislative right, we should feel obligated to be controlled by such a practical exposition.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State ex rel. Jones v. Clausen

3. ““A license to engage in the liquor traffic is not a contract or grant, but a mere permit, and the applicant who receives it does so with the knowledge that it is at all times within the control of the legislature. McKinney v. Town of Salem, 77 Ind. 213 ; State, ex rel. v. Bonnell, 119 Ind. 494 ; Moore v. City of Indianapolis, 120 Ind. 483 ; Black on Intox. Liq., section 51.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Nelson v. State