Orlosky v. Haskell’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

101 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 104 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ . . . ‘The legislature must be intended to mean what it has plainly expressed, ... It matters not, in such a case, what the consequences may be. . . . Where, by the use of clear and unequivocal language, capable of only one meaning, anything is enacted by the legislature, it must be enforced, even though it be absurd or mischievous. If the words go beyond what was probably the intention, effect must nevertheless be given to them. ... Its [the court’s] duty is not to make the law reasonable, but to expound it as it stands, according to the real sense of the words’: . . .””

   5 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Dayton v. Seafern · Paxtang Borough Board of Adjustment v. Arnold

2. ““There are certain canons of construction of statutes expressed as follows: ‘The legislature must be intended to mean what it has plainly expressed, ... It matters not, in such a case, what the consequences may be. . . . Where, by the use of clear and unequivocal language, capable of only one meaning, anything is enacted by the legislature, it must be enforced, even though it be absurd or mischievous. If the words go beyond what was probably the intention, effect must nevertheless be given to them. ... Its [the court’s] duty is not to make the law reasonable, but to expound it as it stands, according to the real sense of the words’: Endlich’s Interpretation of Statutes, section 4 (citing cases). ... ‘As the natural and appropriate office of a proviso is to restrain or qualify some preceding matter, it should be confined to what precedes, unless it is clear that it was intended to apply to subsequent matter. And, as a general rule, a proviso is deemed to apply only to the immediate preceding clause or provision’: 25 R. C. L., page 985.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Records of Illegitimate Births

3. “A qualifying phrase which appears in a paragraph before a semicolon does not leap over or bridge the semicolon and qualify what follows the semicolon. Provisos ordinarily qualify what precedes not what follows them.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Perkins v. Perkins