Goodrum v. Buffalo’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

11 federal appellate · 8 district · 2 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 30 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The Indian who consented to the stipulation for submission to the judgment of the court for such purpose was not a person sui juris. The submission required, as the very basis of its recognition, the acquiescence and consent of the Indian thereto. The effect of the act of Congress, under which the patent was granted, was to deny to the Indian the exercise of any consent whereby the restriction upon the power of alienation could be removed. If the Indian could create no estoppel against himself or herself by deed of conveyance, how could he or she create an estoppel, by consenting to a judgment as the basis of an estoppel, effectual to alienate the land, in direct contravention of the act of Congress ? The allottees of these lands, during the probationary period of 25 years, were under as much disability to alienate them by contract, or deed, or voluntary submission to a court, as if they had been under the disability of coverture or minority. The disability of the minor to do these things is imposed by the common law. The disability of these Indians is imposed by statute. It must, therefore, logically and necessarily follow that the record and judgment of a court, disclosing on their face that the disqualified Indian was entering into an agreement for submission of the question of his right to dispose of these lands, was in no wise different from such a proceeding participated in by a minor infant. It is a wholesome rule of law that a party may not accomplish by indirection ”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Moore · Fulsom v. Quaker Oil & Gas Co.

2. ““The language- of the statute under which the patent was issued to John Medicine is ‘that said allotments shall be inalienable for a period of twenty-five years from and after the date of said patents.’ It is a limitation attached to and running with the land, in no wise dependent upon the life or death of the patentee. It was as much within the policy and purpose of the government to see that the heirs of the allottee, • in case of his death, were protected against alienation of the land, as the allottee himself; otherwise, they might become a charge upon the public, and the beneficent policy of the government in bringing about the allotment of lands in severalty would be thwarted.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Rundell · In re Lands of Five Civilized Tribes

3. ““(1) Because the stipulation of submission, in the affidavit thereto, omitted a material fact, which is jurisdictional in character; (2) because the stipulation and the judgment do not describe the land in suit; (3) because, as to the power of alienation of such land, the Indian allottee and his or her heir, within the’ limitation period of 25 years, was not a person sui juris, capable of assenting to such submission; and (4) because the United States Court in the Indian Territory, being itself a creature of Congress, with limited jurisdiction was not invested with jurisdiction to extend by mere decretal order a power of alienation over such lands denied by another Act of Congress to such Indian.” .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Fulsom v. Quaker Oil & Gas Co.