Ashton v. Cameron County Water Improvement District No. One’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

90 federal appellate · 7 district · 34 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 324 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The act does not authorize the states to impair through their own laws the obligation of existing contracts. Any interference by the states is remote and indirect. At most what-they do is to waive a personal privilege that they would be at liberty to claim. If contracts are impaired, the tie is cut or loosened through the action of the court of bankruptcy approving a plan of composition under the authority of federal law. There, and not beyond in an ascending train of antecedents, is the cause of the impairment to which the law will have regard. Impairment by the central government through laws concerning bankruptcies is not forbidden by the Constitution. Impairment is not forbidden unless effected by the states themselves. No change in obligation results from the filing of a petition by one seeking a discharge, whether a public or a private corporation invokes the jurisdiction. The court, not the petitioner, is the efficient cause of the release.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. In re City of Detroit · In re City of Detroit

2. “If voluntary bankruptcies are anathema for governmental units, municipalities and creditors have been caught in a vise from which it is impossible to let them out. Experience makes it certain that generally there will be at least a small minority of creditors who will resist a composition, however fair and reasonable, if the law does not subject them to a pressure to obey the general will. This is the impasse from which the statute gives relief.... To hold that this purpose must be thwarted by the courts because of a supposed affront to the dignity of a state, though the state disclaims the affront and is doing all it can to keep the law alive, is to malee dignity a doubtful blessing. Not by arguments so divorced from the realities of life has the bankruptcy power been brought to the present state of its development during the century and a half of our national existence.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. In re City of Detroit · In re City of Detroit

3. “The judge ... (11) shall not, by any order or decree, in the proceeding or otherwise, interfere with (a) any of the political or governmental powers of the taxing district, or (b) any of the property or revenues of the taxing district necessary in the opinion of the judge for essential governmental purposes, or (c) any income-producing property, unless the plan of readjustment so provides.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. In re City of Stockton · Association of Retired Employees v. City of Stockton (In re City of Stockton)