Montoya v. Gonzales’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 federal appellate · 3 district · 17 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 49 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The interveners claim such strips, most of them but a few yards wide, but extending, as they say, from the Bio Grande westward to the Ceja or ridge of Bio Puerco,— a distance of some 16 miles. They had no documentary evidence of a title derived from Juan Gonzales, but they and their predecessors in title have occupied the bottom lands between the Bio Grande and the foothills to the west for more than ten years under deeds purporting to convey a fee simple in the respective strips to the ridge of Bio Puerco. The eastern part has been fenced, cultivated, and built upon; but from the foothills to the Ceja of Bio Puerco the land is unfeneed, and by a general custom has been used mainly for the grazing of cattle by the interveners and others claiming ownership in the grant. The title to this last-mentioned land alone is in question now, and it will be seen that if the interveners have the title they claim, it must have been gained by the lapse of time during which they have held what they have held under the above-mentioned deeds. The judgment was in their favor in the courts below. 16 N. M. .349, 120 P. 676 . “The title of the interveners does not depend upon the ordinary statute of limitations, and some considerations that might be relevant under that statute are not relevant here. The title rests upon a peculiar statute that has been in force unchanged in any particular affecting this case, it is said, since 1858. Comp. Laws 1865, chap. 73, § 1, Comp. Laws, 1897 § 2937. By thi”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Garcia v. United States

2. ““ * * * the statute simply enacts that possession for ten years of the front and cultivable portion of a strip under a deed carrying the whole of it back to the ridge of the Puerco, shall give title to the whole. We can see no taking of property without due process of law. A statute of limitations may give title, [citations omitted]. The disseisee has notice of the law and of the fact that he is dispossessed, and that a deed to the disseisor may purport to convey more than is fenced in. If he chooses to wait ten years without bringing suit, he is not in a position to complain of the consequences * * * ” 232 U.S. at 378 , 34 S.Ct. at 414 . (Emphasis supplied).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Deakyne v. Commissioners of Lewes