Fall v. Cty. of Sutter’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 12 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 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"We do not consider it necessary to criti-cise very closely the provisions of the act of 1850 or 1855 in reference to bridges, ferries, etc., to determine whether the rights of the plaintiffs are governed by the first or last of these statutes, or both together; nor is it necessary to decide the question of the power of the Legislature to divest itself, by way of grant, of the right to make any further or other grant of a ferry or bridge franchise, so as to interfere with the business or profits of the one first granted. Por it is not pretended that any express grant was made to the plaintiffs here to this effect. The acts of 1850 and 1855, while they empower the eourt of sessions in the one ease, and the board of supervisors in the other, to grant' this franchise, do not purport to make the grant in exclusion of the right of the state, or the board, or the eourt, to grant to anyone else a franchise for a bridge or ferry in the same neighborhood, or so situated as to interfere with the first. These franchises, being sovereign prerogatives, belong to the political power of the state, and are primarily represented and granted by the Legislature as the head of the political power; and the subordinate bodies or tribunals making the grants are only agents of the Legislature in this respect. But the delegation of these powers to these subordinates in no way impairs the power of the Legislature to make the grant.” •”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Southern California Utilities, Inc. v. City of Huntington Park