Berrigan v. Sigler’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 federal appellate · 1 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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “While we must remain sensitive to the overriding importance of First Amendment rights in the evaluation of restrictions that may be even tangentially related, the enforcement of legitimate regulations must not be diluted or rendered impractical because as an incident to their application speaking, association or writing may be affected. Under the guise of exercising the First Amendment right of free speech, a person may not reposition himself where he otherwise would have no authority to be. Nor can one in reliance upon freedom of the press, by virtue of that reliance alone, legally seize without consideration or lawful warrant the plant of a newspaper belonging to another; it would be one thing to expect to use the columns of the paper to voice views and opinions under appropriate conditions, quite another to move without authority into another’s plant for the purpose.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Phillips v. Bureau of Prisons

2. “The decision of a trial or appellate court whether to grant or deny a preliminary injunction does not constitute the law of the case for the purposes of further proceedings and does not limit or preclude the parties from litigating the merits, unless there has been an order of consolidation pursuant to [Fed.R.Civ.P.] Rule 65(a)(2) ....”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. National Organization for Women Washington Dc Chapter v. Social Security Administration of Department of Health and Human Services