Cameron v. United States’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

167 federal appellate · 113 district · 20 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 459 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[N]o right arises from an invalid claim of any kind. All must conform to the law' under which they are initiated; otherwise they work an unlawful private appropriation in derogation of the rights of the public. Of course, the land department has no power to strike down any claim arbitrarily, but so long as the legal title remains in the Government it does have power, after proper notice and upon adequate hearing, to determine whether the claim is valid and, if it be found invalid, to declare it null and void.”

   11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Locke · Adams v. United States

2. “By general statutory provisions the execution of the laws regulating the acquisition of rights in the public lands and the general care of these lands is confided to the Land Department, as a special tribunal; and the Secretary of the Interior, as the head of the Department, is charged with seeing that this authority is rightly exercised to the end that valid claims may be recognized, invalid ones eliminated, and the rights of the public preserved. [Citations omitted] 21”

   5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Andrus v. Charlestone Stone Products Co. · 37 F. Supp. 3d 313 - Freeman v. United States Department of the Interior

3. ““ * * * A reading of each decision in its entirety, and not merely the excerpts * * * makes it plain that the Secretary proceeded upon the theory that to support a mining location the discovery should be such as would justify a person of ordinary prudence in the further expenditure of his time and means in an effort to develop a paying mine. That is not a novel or mistaken test, but is one which the Land Department long has applied and this court has approved. Chrisman v. Miller, 197 U.S. 313, 322 , 25 Sup.Ct. 468 , 49 L.Ed. 770 .””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Fresh v. Udall · Garula v. Udall