Stevens v. Patten’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 federal appellate · 13 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 20 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “'“A suit to set aside a deed from the state cannot be maintained by a private citizen having no interest in the land; but the failure of the holder of the beneficial estate to appear before the register of the state land office and contest the patentee’s right to a patent does not conclude such holder from asserting his right; and the view has been taken that one who has a prior equitable right to receive the patent, superior to that of the patentee, may enforce his equity by action, or, when he is defendant, by answer, and the court may cause regular title to be vested in him and adjudge possession to him. Where the state officials are induced to issue a patent to state school land to the wrong person, the rightful claimant may charge the legal title of the patentee with the claimant’s equitable right and have the holder of the patent and those with notice declared trustees for the rightful owner. * *. “Equity has jurisdiction to determine whether a patent to-state school lands was issued under an erroneous view of the law or through a gross or fraudulent.mistake of the facts.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Kennedy v. Morrow

2. ““It is well settled that, if the officers of the Land Department are induced to issue a patent to the wrong party by an erroneous view of the law, or because of a gross or fraudulent mistake of the facts, the rightful claimant has a remedy, and may avoid the decision of the Land Department and charge the legal title of the patentee with his equitable right to it, either upon the ground that, upon the facts found, conceded, or established, without dispute, at the final hearing before the department, its officers fell into a clear error in the construction of the law applicable to the case, which caused them to issue the patent to the wrong party, or that, through fraud or gross mistake, they fell into a misapprehension of the facts proved before them, which had the like effect.” '”

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

3. ““Having secured a certificate of purchase for the land from the Land Office, and made some of the payments thereon, Ella P. Frazier thereby became the owner of an equitable estate in said land, which could ripen into a full legal title upon completing the payments under contract and securing patent. . . . “Ella P. Frazier conveyed an undivided one-fifth interest in the land by deed to Emery A. Foster in her lifetime, which deed was duly placed of record in Logan county. This she had a right to do.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Johnson v. FARMER'S UNION CO-OP. ROYALTY CO.