Garrison v. Sampson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 district · 6 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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““A fatal objection to the judgment consists in the finding of the Judge in favor of the plaintiff for the whole tract of land sued for. The plaintiff claims by force of. prior possession and a contract or consent on the part of the defendant, whom he mediately or immediately let into possession, to hold the premises for him or subject to his order. The land is public land. It was not taken up by the plaintiff under the ■ Possessory Act of this State, nor was it inclosed. There were a house and corral on the land. Of these he may be said to have been in the actual occupancy.- But we cannot see from the proofs any right of possession to the whole of the quarter section, or even any claim to it. We do not understand that the mere fact that a man enters upon a portion of the public land, and builds or occupies a house or corral on a small part of it, gives him any claim to the wholé subdivision, even as against one entering upon it without title. The case would be different if he claimed under the Possessory Act, and pursued the necessary steps prescribed by it;' or if he had made his entry under the preemption laws of the United States. But merely going on waste and uninclosed land, and building a house and corral, and even subse quently cutting hay on a part, did not extend his possession. to the whole of the one hundred and sixty acres.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Cramer v. United States