Fitzhugh v. Elliott’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““While the practice of amending verdicts in matters of form is one of long standing, based on principles of the soundest public policy in the furtherance of justice, it is strictly limited to cases where the jury have expressed their meaning' in an informal manner. The court has no power to supply substantial omissions, and the amendment in all cases must be such as to make the verdict conform to the real intent of the jury. The judge cannot, under the guise of amending the verdict, invade the province of the jury or substitute his verdict for theirs. After the amendment the verdict must be not what the judge thinks it ought to have been, but what the jury intended it to be. Their actual intent, and not his notion of what they ought to have intended, is the thing to be expressed and worked out by the amendment.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Miller v. Garner