Atlantic Co v. Mingus’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

15 federal appellate · 3 district · 14 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 81 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Those cuses are not put upon the ground that the United States reserved the right to declare a forfeiture, or even iirovlded expressly for a reversion of title in case of a breach, but upon the general ground Unit the government was vested with the same right as a private grantor, upon breach of a condition subsequent, though such right was, from the necessities of the case, to lie exorcised in a somewhat different: manner, viz., by legislative act instead of re-entry. “But, while we think the practice of forfeiting by legislaiive act is too well settled to be now disturbed, we do not wish to be understood as saying that lilis power may lie arbitrarily exercised, or that the grantee may not set up in defense any facts which lie might lay before a jury in a judicial inquisition. It would comport neither wiili tile dignity of the government:, nor with the constitutional rights of the grantee, to hold that the government by an arbitrary act might devest: the latter of liis title when there had been no breach of the conditions subsequent, or when tlie government itself had been manifestly in default in the performance of its stipulations. The inquiry in each case is a judicial one, whether there has been, upon either side, a failure to perform, and it: makes hut little practical difference whether such inquiry precedes or follows the re-entry or act, of forfeiture.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. United States v. Oregon & C. R. · Columbia Valley Railroad v. Portland & Seattle Railway Co.

2. ““In what manner the reserved right of the grantor for breach of the condition must be asserted so as to restore the estate depends upon the character of the grant. If it be a private grant, that right must be asserted by entry or its equivalent. If the grant be a public one, it must be asserted by judicial proceedings authorized by law, the equivalent of an inquest of office at common law, finding the fact of forfeiture and adjudging the restoration of the estate on that ground, or there must be some legislative assertion of ownership of the property for breach of the condition, such as an act directing the possession and appropriation of the property, or that it be offered for sale or settlement. At common law the sovereign-could not make an entry in person, and therefore an office found was necessary to determine the estate, but, as said by this court in a late case, ‘the mode of asserting or of resuming the forfeited grant is subject to the legislative authority of the government. It may be after judicial investigation, or by taking possession directly under the authority of the government without these preliminary proceedings.’ In the present case no action has been taken either by legislation or judicial proceedings to enforce a forfeiture of the estate granted by the acts of 1856 and 1864. The title remains, therefore, in the state as completely as it existed on the day when the title by location of the route of the railroad acquired precision and became attached to the”

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

3. ““A forfeiture by the state of an interest in lands and connected franchises, granted for the construction of' a public work, may be declared for non-compliance with the conditions annexed to their grant, or to their possession, when the forfeiture is provided by statute, without judicial proceedings to ascertain and determine the failure of the grantee to perform the conditions. Such mode of ascertainment and determination — that is, by judicial proceedings — is attended with many conveniences and advantages over any other mode, as it establishes as matter of record, importing verity. against the grantee, the facts upon which the forfeiture depends and thus avoids uncertainty in titles, and consequent litigation. But that mode is not essential to the devestiture of the interest where the grant is for the accomplishment of an object in which the public is concerned, and is made by a law which expressly provides for the forfeiture when that object is not accomplished. Where land and franchises are thus held, any public assertion by legislative act of the ownership of the state, after default of the grantee — such as an act resuming control of them and appropriating them to particular uses, or granting them to others to carry out the original object,— will be equally effectual and operative. It was so decided in United States v. Repentigny, 5 Wall. 211 , and in Schulenberg v. Harriman, 21 Wall. 44 , with respect to real property held upon conditions subsequent.” . . . “The only ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Columbia Valley Railroad v. Portland & Seattle Railway Co.