Geer v. Mathieson Alkali Works’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

59 federal appellate · 47 district · 10 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 203 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““A suit may, consistently with the rules of pleading, embrace several distinct controversies. Barney v. Latham, 103 U. S. 205 , 212, 26 L. Ed. 514 . It was said in Hyde v. Ruble, 104 U. S. 409 , 26 L. Ed. 824 : ‘To entitle a party to a removal under this clause [second clause of section 2 of the act of 1875, same as second clause in the act of 1887], there must exist in the suit a separate and distinct cause of action, in respect to which all the necessary parties on one side are citizens of different states from those on the other.’ In other words, as expressed in Fraser v. Jennison, 106 U. S. 191 , 194, 1 Sup. Ct. 171 , 27 L. Ed. 131 , ‘the case must be one capable of separation into parts, so that in one of the parts a controversy will be presented with citizens of one or more states on one side, and citizens of other states on the other, which can be fully determined without the presence of any of the other parties to the suit as it has been begun.’ And when two or more causes of action are united in one suit, there can be a removal of the whole suit on the petition of pne or more of the plaintiffs or defendants (now only the defendants) interested in the controversy, which, if it had been sued on alone, would be removable.””

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Boatmen's Bank v. Fritzlen · Regis v. United Drug Co.

2. ““The directors and the treasurer are, therefore, not real parties to the suits, but merely nominal parties. No personal demand is made against any •one of them, nor is any personal accounting asked for any one of them, and 'it is only in his relation to the company, and in the official position that he occupies toward the company, that any one of them is made a party. The test of this is that, if any one of the directors or the treasurer were to resign his office, he would necessarily cease, ipso factor, to be a proper party to the suit, and the plaintiff would be obliged to make his successor in office a party, and so on with every change. The reason for this would be that, there being no relief prayed against the individual in his individual capacity, and the in junction asked being to restrain him merely from doing or not doing what his Official relation to the company alone enables him to do, or to refrain from doing, when such official relation ceases, the relief asked and the injunction issued become, as to him, utterly futile. This would not be the case where he was made a party defendant, jointly with the corporation of which he was an officer, for the purpose of obtaining some specific relief against him on a personal liability, or in order to obtain a discovery from him in regard to matters peculiarly within his knowledge. There the dissolution of his official relation would not affect the propriety of his being retained as a defendant. This view is conclusive to sh”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Regis v. United Drug Co. · Smith v. Barnett

3. ““To entitle a party to a removal under this clause there must exist in the suit a separate and distinct cause of action in respect to which all the necessary parties on one side are citizens of different states from ürose on the other.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Venner v. Southern Pac. Co. · Old Dominion Oil Co. v. Superior Oil Corp.