Watson v. Boyett’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

24 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 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Wherever, -indeed, statutes of this character are found they are regarded as of a character so highly penal that very slight circumstances are held to exempt officers from their operation.” In the last case, the court, in its opinion, referred to the statute as peremptory, harsh, and highly penal. Under the statute, if a sheriff fails to make return of an execution in his hands, according to its command, he is made liable for the penalty denounced by the statute whether the defendant in execution be solvent or insolvent. In other words, the statute makes the sheriff liable even though it be shown that the judgment upon which the execution was issued was absolutely worthless. Cox v. Ross, supra. We think the present case is a stronger case for the sheriff than either of the cases above cited. Here we have the plaintiff in execution, through her agent, her husband, shortly before the return day of the execution, admitting to the sheriff that nothing could be made out of the defendant in execution. That, in connection with the balance of the conversation that took place between them as above set out, we think, constituted more than a slight circumstance calculated to throw the sheriff off of his guard — to make him less diligent in the performance of the duties required of him by the statute. We are of the opinion that it was sufficient to relieve the sheriff from the extreme penalty of the statute.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Nitto Denko America, Inc. v. ABCD Tapes