232 Md. App. 602 - Duffy v. CBS Corp.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

9 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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The statute must be construed as a whole so that no word, clause, sentence or phrase is rendered surplusage, superfluous, meaningless or nugatory.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 235 Md. App. 37 - Foy v. Baltimore City Detention Ctr. · Duffy v. CBS Corp.

2. “our endeavor is always to seek out the legislative purpose, ... we are not limited to [the] study of the statutory language. The plain meaning rule is not a complete, all-sufficient rule for ascertaining a legislative intention. The meaning of the plainest language is controlled by the context in which it appears. Thus, we always are free to look at the context within which statutory language appears. Even when the words of a statute carry a definite meaning, we are not precluded from consulting legislative history as part of the process of determining the legislative purpose or goal of the law.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 235 Md. App. 37 - Foy v. Baltimore City Detention Ctr.

3. “we begin with the statutory language itself since the words of the statute, construed according to their ordinary and natural import, are the primary source and most persuasive evidence of legislative intent.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 235 Md. App. 37 - Foy v. Baltimore City Detention Ctr.