Branch v. Mitchell’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

21 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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “We continue satisfied with the decisions heretofore made; and again hold that all the lands in the state, which were really and in fact swamp and overflowed, and thereby unfit for cultivation, passed to and vested in the State, on the 28th of September, 1850. The case is the same as if the grant had been of all the prairie land, or all .the woodland, or all the alluvial land, in the state ; the difficulty of ascertainment of its character not affecting the question. The words of grant, the operative words, are direct and positive: £ Shall be and the same are hereby granted to the State; ’”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Wright v. Roseberry

2. ““The provisions of the fifth section of the act of the 11th of January, 1851, must be construed to be a consent on the part of the state to receive from the United States the purchase money paid to the latter for all such of the swamp lands as the state could rightfully relinquish, and not for any which any person might obtain a right to, as against the state, before the purchase of the same by another from the United States.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Kirby v. Lewis

3. “on that patent the fee simple to said lands shall vest in the said State,”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Wright v. Roseberry