Nye v. Foreman’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

26 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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““It is the province and duty of the courts to determine the meaning and true construction of constitutions and statutes, but when the legislative department, in the enactment of laws, and the executive officers, charged with the duty of enforcing or applying constitutional provisions and statutes, have, by contemporaneous, long, uniform and practical construction of a constitutional or statutory provision, accepted and acted upon it as having a definite and particular meaning, the conclusion so reached and acted upon by the legislative department and by executive officers will, in view of the great injury and injustice which would result from a change in such construction and meaning, be accorded great weight by the judiciary when that department of the government is called upon to construe the law, and will, in general, control, whenever the question is in a degree doubtful or open to reasonable debate. (Bruce v. Schuyler, 4 Gilm. 221 ; Comstock v. Cover, 35 Ill. 470 ; People v. Loewenthal, 93 id. 191; People v. Board of Supervisors, 100 id. 495; People v. Fidelity and Casualty Co., 153 id. 25; Boehm v. Hertz, 182 id. 154; People v. Knopf, 171 id. 191; Burke v. Snively, 208 id. 328; 8 Cyc. 736, 737.) The facts disclosed by this record call, as we think, for the application of this doctrine of construetion to the contention here arising for decision, and should control the inquiry as to the true meaning of the constitutional provision under consideration.” (Nye v. Foreman, 21”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Village of Broadview v. Toman