Flanagan v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

21 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 21 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Whatever may be the extent of relaxation determined on in ultimately fixing a rule, it may be safely concluded that a failure to take action, by continuance or otherwise, in a cause in a justice’s court for four years, in which time the cause of action would be barred by limitations, should be held to have released the defendant from further attention or defense to the cause. Otherwise the plaintiff might in some cases be interested in thus delaying a cause, and by allowing it to slumber under an apparent abandonment of the suit, until the evidence of defendant might be lost, gain an undue advantage. But apart from that consideration, every one one who is summoned into court to answer a complaint has a right to expect that reasonable diligence shall be used in prosecuting the proceedings against him.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Beaudette v. City of El Paso