Edmund Smiley v. State of Kansas’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

24 federal appellate · 5 district · 57 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 166 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"He cannot be heard to object to the statute merely because it operates oppressively upon others. The hurt must be to himself. The case, under appellant's contention as to this point, is not a case of favoritism in the law. It is not a case of exclusion of classes who ought to have been included, the leaving out of which constitutes a denial of the equal protection of the law, but it is the opposite of that. It is a case of the inclusion of those who ought to have been excluded. Hence, unless appellant can show that he himself has been wrongly included in the terms of the law, he can have no just ground of complaint. This is fundamental and decisively settled. ( City of Kansas City v. Railway Co., 59 Kan. 427 , 53 Pac. 468 , 52 L.R.A. 321 , affirmed under the title Clark v. Kansas City, 176 U.S. 114 , 20 Sup. Ct. 284, 44 L.Ed. 392 ; Supervisors v. Stanley, 105 U.S. 305, 311 , 26 L.Ed. 1044 ; Pittsburg &c. R. Co. v. Montgomery, 152 Ind. 1 , 49 N.E. 582 , 71 Am. St. Rep. 301 , 311.)" p. 247.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Flax v. Kansas Turnpike Authority

2. ““It may be conceded, for the purposes of this case, that the language of the 1st section is broad enough to include acts beyond the police power of the state, and the punishment of which would unduly infringe upon the freedom of contract. At any rate we shall not attempt to enter into any consideration of that question. The supreme court of the state held that the acts charged and proved against the defendant were clearly within the terms of the statute, as well as within the police power of. the state; and that the statute could be sustained as a prohibition of those acts irrespective of the question whether its language was broad enough to include acts and conduct which the legislature could not rightfully restrain. . “It is well settled that in cases of- this kind the interpretation placed by the highest court of the state upon its statutes is conclusive here. We accept the construction given to a state statute by that court. * * * ” Smiley v. Kansas, supra.”

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

3. “It is well settled that in cases of this kind the interpretation placed by the highest court of the State upon its statutes is conclusive here.... Nor is it material that the state court ascertains the meaning and scope of the statute as well as its validity by pursuing a different rule of construction from what we recognize.... The power to determine the meaning of a statute carries with it the power to pre scribe its extent and limitations as well as the method by which they shall be determined.”

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