Shaw v. Kellogg’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

36 federal appellate · 10 district · 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 107 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The power of supervision possessed by the commissioner of the general land office over the acts of the register and receiver of the local land offices in the disposition of the public lands undoubtedly authorizes him to correct and annul entries of land allowed by them, where the lands are not subject to entry, or the parties do not possess the qualifications required, or have previously entered all that the law permits. The exercise of this power is necessary to the due administration of the land department. * * * But the power of supervision and correction is not an unlimited or an arbitrary power. It can be exercised only when the entry was made upon false testimony or without authority of law. It cannot be exercised so as to deprive any person of land lawfully entered and paid for. By such entry and payment the purchaser secures a vested interest in the property, and a right to a patent therefor, and can no more be deprived of it by order of the commissioner than he can be deprived by such order of any other lawfully acquired property. Any attempted deprivation in that way of such interest will be corrected whenever the matter is presented so that the judiciary can act upon it.” '”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Olive Land & Development Co. v. Olmstead · Cosmos Exploration Co. v. Gray Eagle Oil Co.

2. “to select instead of the land claimed by them, an equal quantity of vacant land, not mineral, in the Territory of New Mexico, to be located by them in square bodies, not exceeding five in number.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Wyoming v. United States · Pueblo of Jemez v. United States

3. ““In this case the Land Department refused to issue a patent; decided that it bad no power to do so, and that the title was complete without one. It would seem strange to hold that the lack of a patent left the question of mineral an open one when there was no authority for the issue of a patent, when it was in fact refused and when, the title passed the same as though a patent had issued. There was not at the time of these transactions, and has not since been, any statute specifically authorizing a patent for this land. Section 2447, Rev. Stat. [Comp. St. 1913, § 5097], taken from the act of December 22, 1854, c. 10, 10 Stat. 599 [Comp. St. 1913, § 5097] applies only to the case of a claim to land ‘which has heretofore been confirmed by láw.’ And the same may be said as to the special act of March 3, 1869, c. 152, 15 Stat. 342 . Here there had been no claim confirmed to any tract of land, but only the grant of a right to locate. In that respect it was like a land warrant, subject to location anywhere within the specified territory. As to land warrants, however, there is a specific provision for the issue of patents. Rev. Stat. § 2423 [Comp. St. 1913, § 4835]. The Land Department was therefore technically right when it said that the statute did not order the issue of a patent, and that the case was one in which the granting act with the approved survey and location made a. full transfer of title. Very likely if a patent had been issued the courts would not have declared it voi”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Wise v. Watts