Northern Pac Ry Co v. De Lacey’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

20 federal appellate · 4 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 60 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““If there had been a pre-emption claim at the time of the passage of the act of 1864, the land would not have passed under that grant” 174 U. S. 626 , 19 Sup. Ct. 793 , 43 L. Ed. 1111 .”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Oregon & C. R. · Oregon & C. R. v. United States

2. ““Section 1. That the right of way through the public lands of the. United States is hereby granted to any railroad company duly organized under the laws of any state or territory, except the District of Columbia, or by the Congress of the United States, which shall have filed with the Secretary of the Interior a copy of its articles of incorporation, and due proofs of its organization under the same, to the extent of one hundred feet on each side of the central line of said road; also the right to take, from the public lands adjacent to the line of said road, material, earth, stone, and timber necessary for the construction of said railroad; also ground adjacent to such right of way for station-buildings, depots, machine shops, side-tracks, turn-outs, and water-stations, not to exceed in amount twenty acres for each station, to the extent of one station for each ten miles of its road. . . . “Sec. 2. That any railroad company desiring to secure the benefits of this act, shall, within twelve months after the location of any section of twenty miles of its road, if the same be upon surveyed lands, and, if upon unsurveyed lands, within twelve months after the survey thereof by the United States, file with the register of the land office for the district where such land is located a profile of its road; and upon approval thereof by the Secretary of the Interior the same shall be noted upon the plats in said office; and thereafter all such lands over which such right of way shall pa”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Rio Grande Western Railway Co. v. Stringham

3. “We thus find that since 1871 all claimants of pre-emption rights lost those rights by operation of law, unless within thirty months after the date prescribed for filing their declaratory notices they made proper proof and payment for the lands claimed. The filing of their declaratory statement and the record made in pursuance of that filing became without legal value if within the time prescribed by the statute proper proof and payment were not made. Whether such proof and payment were made would be matter of record, and if they were not so made the original claim was cancelled by operation of law, and required no cancellation on the records of the land office to carry the forfeiture into effect. The law forfeited the right and cancelled the entry just as effectually as if the fact were evidenced by an entry upon the record. The mere entry would not cause the forfeiture or cancellation. It is the provision of law which makes the forfeiture, and the entries on the record are a mere acknowledgment of the law, and have in and of themselves, if not authorized by the law, ño effect. The law does not provide for such a cancellation before it is to take effect. The expiration of time is a most effective cancellation. In such a case as this, where the forfeiture occurs by the expiration of the thirty months within which to make proof and payment, the record shows that the claim has expired; that it no longer exists for any purpose, and therefore it cannot be necessary in order that t”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Park District of City of Bismarck v. Bertsch