Johnson v. Hall’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The ballot title here — An amendment to require adequate safety devices at all public railroad crossings, — obviously, we think, would convey to the voter, or carry the presumption to him, that at present the railroads were not using adequate safety devices at all public crossings and that our present statutes do not provide adequate protection for the highway traveler. Certainly all good citizens would vote for adequate protection at public crossings. There is nothing in this ballot title that tells the voter that this amendment would require all railroads in Arkansas to install and maintain at each public crossing or street electrically controlled warning signals, and in addition electrically controlled boards or gates on each side of the public railroad crossings, without any regard to the distance that said crossing might be from a source of electric power, and that such a requirement would place an additional burden of heavy expense on the railroads of millions of dollars to install and maintain such devices, at an estimated 3,600 public railroad crossings in Arkansas, whether the daily traffic count over such crossings amounted to a dozen vehicles or thousands.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Mason v. Jernigan

2. ““We think it can safely be said that ail citizens are against the operation of trains that do not carry sufficient crews to reasonably assure safety. We cannot conceive that anyone would vote the contrary of this proposition, viz., to permit the operation of trains with unsafe and inadequate crews. The amendment itself seeks to declare that to operate trains with inadequate crews, (meaning, of course, a crew less than that provided in the act), ‘ is detrimental to the safety and welfare of the people. * * *’ But there has been no prior determination that this assertion is always true. Actually, this is a fact question, depending upon the circumstances in each case. Such reasoning is in the nature of ‘begging the question,’ which is defined as ‘founding a conclusion on a basis that needs to be proved as much as the conclusion itself.’ Here, the voter is urged to support a measure which provides for a particular crew in the operation of trains, because to operate with a smaller crew is, according to the ballot title, ‘unsafe and inadequate’ — but the ‘unsafe and inadequate’ remains to be proved.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Mason v. Jernigan