Hawks v. Hamill’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

202 federal appellate · 41 district · 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 442 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “* * * At least it is a considered dictum, and not comment merely obiter. It has capacity, though it be less than a decision, to tilt the balanced mind toward submission and agreement. * * * In controversies so purely local, little gain is to be derived from drawing nice distinctions between dicta and decisions. Disagreement with either, even though permissible, is at best a last resort, to be embraced with caution and reluctance. The stranger from afar, unacquainted with the local ways, permits himself to be guided by the best evidence available, the directions or the counsel of those who dwell upon the spot.”

   7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Johnson v. United States · Leiter Minerals, Inc. v. United States

2. “Caution and reluctance there must be in special measure where relief, if granted, is an interference by the process of injunction with the activities of state officers discharging in good faith their supposed official duties. In such circumstances this court has said that an injunction ought not to issue “unless in a case reasonably free from doubt.”... A prudent self-restraint is called for at such times if state and national functions are to be maintained in stable equilibrium.... Our process does not issue unless the path is clear.”

   6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Reynolds v. Giuliani · Planned Parenthood League of Mass. v. Bellotti

3. ““We are urged by the respondents to exert a power of independent judgment though the law to be interpreted be a constitution or a statute, and not merely the form of law which has come to be spoken of as general. Cf. Burgess v. Seligman, 107 U. S. 20 , 2 S. Ct. 10 , 27 L. Ed. 359 . The power, we are told, exists because at the grant of these franchises in 1911, the courts of Oklahoma had not yet spoken as to the meaning of the Constitutioh by defining the ‘perpetuities’ within the zone of its restraints. Kuhn v. Fairmont Coal Co., 215 U. S. 349 , 30 S. Ct. 140 , 54 L. Ed. 228 ; Moore-Mansfield Construction Co. v. Electrical Installation Co., 234 U. S. 619 , 625, 34 S. Ct. 941 , 58 L. Ed. 1503 ; Edward Hines Yellow Pine Trustees v. Martin, 268 U. S. 458 , 463, 45 S. Ct. 543 , 69 L. Ed. 1050 . Obedience is due to the courts of the state if the decisions claiming fealty are so many and unequivocal as to make out a ‘rule of property.’ Edward Hines Yellow Pine Trustees v. Martin, supra, 268 U. S. 458 at pages 463, 464, 45 S. Ct. 543 , 69 L. Ed. 1050 . As to this there is no denial. The argument is that the fetters of obedience are released when there is only a single state decision, and this subsequent to the transaction out of which rights and duties have developed. Kuhn v. Fairmont Coal Co., supra; Edward Hines Yellow Pine Trustees v. Martin, supra. One hurdle, it is said, will be overlept if there are no barriers beyond. “Choice is not so free as the argument assumes. If the si”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Medical Arts Bldg. Co. v. Minnesota Loan & Trust Co.