Suell v. Derricott’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 69 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 74 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ ‘If the person assaulted, being himself without fault, reasonably apprehends death or great bodily harm to himself unless he kill the assailant, the killing is justifiable.’ ... “ * * * “... There is also a rule of law that, in cases of self-defense, the party is not required to know the real fact, but he may act upon a reasonable and well-founded appearance and apprehension, and, whenever a man exercises the right of self-defense, he is understood to act on the facts as they reasonably appeared to him, or as they would appear to a reasonable man, similarly situated; and if, without fault or carelessness on his part, he is misled concerning the facts, and defends himself according to what he reasonably supposes the facts to be, he is justifiable, though in truth the facts as they were reasonably supposed did not exist, and in fact he had no occasion for the extreme measure.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 507 So. 2d 451 - Bennett v. Dunn

2. ““It must be observed that tbe right of action is only given under this statute to the personal representative when the intestate could have maintained an action for the same act had it failed to produce death. A corollary of this is that, if the wrongful act complained of had not produced death, but only an injury, and the person injured could not have maintained an action then the personal representative cannot maintain an action under the statute when death results. It would therefore seem to follow that all defenses available to the defendant, if the action had been brought by the person injured when death did not result, are available to the defendant in an action brought •by the administrator of the person injured for the wrongful death.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Seaboard Air Line Ry. v. Allen

3. ““It will be observed that a distinction is made between felonies and misdemeanors, as to the amount of force that may be used to prevent the one or the other, or that may be employed to arrest persons, or to prevent the escape of persons who have committed the one or the other. It is not only the right, of all persons to prevent felonies in certain cases, but at common law it was made the duty, and was made a misdemeanor known as misprision, for any person seeing a felony attempted, not to prevent it by force if necessary, and one who failed to discharge such duty was guilty of the misdemeanor called misprision of felony. Carpenter v. State, 62 Ark. 286 , 36 S. W. 906 .””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Hulls v. Williams