McDonald v. Bowen’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 21 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “We are unwilling to lift words, “other public purposes,” from their context and take them to mean absolutely any conceivable public purpose, regardless of its connection with the rest of the Amendment. In holding that the phrase, “other public purposes,” was not an open-end authorization of unlimited scope, we are influenced by two principles of interpretation. First, the rule of construction known as noscitur a sociis (It is known from its associates) requires that general language be construed to be comparable to the specific language of its context. Altus Cooperative Winery v. Morley, 218 Ark. 492 , 237 S.W.2d 481 (1951). Here every other clause in the Amendment has to do with the attraction of new industry. In that context the reference to other public purposes may fairly be taken to mean those of the same nature as the enumerated ones, even though not specifically set forth.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. McKinney v. Robbins