Hall v. Bowman’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 district ·

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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““[6] To our mind, the statute is clear and unequivocal in providing that the 20 days is to run from the receipt by the defendant, through service or otherwise, of a copy of the initial pleading. It does not say that the period is to run from ‘service’ on the defendant, or from ‘notice’ to the defendant, or from service on the defendant ‘or his statutory agent.’ We believe that when the statute provides that the 20 days are to run from the receipt of a copy of the pleading by the defendant it means just that and we can see no reason for holding otherwise. Receipt by the statutory agent is not receipt by the defendant by any stretch of the judicial imagination. It is the defendant, and not the Secretary of the State of Missouri, who has to decide within the prescribed time whether he desires and has grounds for removal. We, therefore, can only conclude that the 20-day period prescribed by Section 1446(b) runs from actual receipt of the initial pleading by a non-resident motorist, and not from time of service on the Secretary of State who is a mere statutory agent with no duty to perform with respect to service upon him, other than to forward the process to the non-resident defendant.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Barber v. Willis