State v. . Harris’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

134 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 136 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Thus, an unlimited discretion is given to the commission to set up standards of their own for admission to the business of ‘dry cleaning and/or pressing,’ according to whatever rules or regulations they may conceive to be related to the ‘public health, safety, and welfare of the people.’ “In licensing those who desire to engage in professions or occupations such as may (be proper subjects of such regulation, the Legislature may confer upon executive officers or bodies the power of granting or refusing to license persons to enter such trades or professions only when it has prescribed a sufficient standard for their guidance. 16 C. J. S., p. 373, and cases cited. Where such a power is left to the unlimited discretion of a board, to be exercised without the guide of legislative standards, the statute is not only discriminatory but must be regarded as an attempted delegation of the legislative function offensive both to the State and the Federal Constitution.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. 37 Wash. 2d 41 - State v. Gilroy · Revco Southeast Drug Centers, Inc. v. North Carolina Board of Pharmacy

2. “"The state of internal protest has been reached. In marginal cases controversies in the courts have arisen as to whether the organization has captured a sufficient quantum of public purpose to operate as an agency of the government, or whether the police power of the State, ostensibly exercised for a public purpose, is not really farmed out to a private group to be used in narrowing the field of competition, or in aid of exploitation by creating remunerative positions in administration. Roach v. Durham, 204 N.C. 587 , 169 S.E. 149 ; S. v. Lawrence, 213 N.C. 674 , 197 S.E. 586 . Without the aid of the statute these groups would be mere trade guilds, or voluntary business associations; with it they become State agencies, retaining, however, as far as possible, distinctive guild features. An exclusive self-governing status is achieved by the device of securing a majority membership on the administrative boards or commissions, and in aid of this the power of the State is heavily invoked by way of prosecution in the criminal courts of those who are unable to secure the approval of the board and obtain license to engage in the occupation.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Roller v. Allen

3. ““It follows that there is a well recognized gap between the regulation of a business or occupation and restrictions preventing persons from engaging in them to which courts must pay careful attention. While many of the rights of man, as declared in the constitution, contemplate adjustment to social necessities, some of them are not so yielding. Among them the right to earn a living must be regarded as inalienable. Conceding this, a law which destroys the opportunity of a man or woman to earn a living in one of the ordinary harmless occupations of life by the erection of edu cational and moral standards of fitness is legal grotesquery.” 6 S.E.2d at 863 . “Resort to the police power to exclude persons from an ordinary calling, finding justification only by the existence of a vague public interest, often amounting to no more than a doubtful social convenience, is collectivistic in principle, destructive to the historic values of these guaranties, and contrary to the genius of the people who did all that was humanly possible to secure them in a written constitution.” 6 S.E.2d at 865 .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Chapdelaine v. Tennessee State Board of Examiners for Land Surveyors