Andrews v. McDade’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “As to real property, the general rule is that where the state has passed a perfect legal title, the doctrine of abandonment is not applicable thereto, and that the title vested in the grantee cannot be affected or transferred by his act in departing from the land and leaving it unoccupied, or otherwise ceasing to exercise dominion over it.... At common law, while an incorporeal hereditament may be lost by abandonment, the principle is firmly established that perfect legal title to a corporeal hereditament cannot be abandoned, or lost by abandonment, operating alone, and dissociated from other acts or circumstances; and so it is frequently said that so far as land is concerned, there can be an abandonment only in a case where the title is imperfect, or less than absolute. The doctrine of abandonment has, therefore, no application to a fee simple; but inchoate rights and equitable rights in land may be abandoned, and so may mere possessory rights, and rights acquired by user....”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Fender v. Heirs at Law of Smashum