United States v. Northern Pacific Railway Co.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

37 federal appellate · 27 district · 9 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 115 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The corporation chartered by Congress [the Railroad Company] operated the road until receivers were appointed in 1893. Pursuant to foreclosure proceedings the Northern Pacific Railway Company [the applicant] acquired title to the railroad, the land grant, and all other property of the original corporation and has since operated the road and obtained patents for millions of acres under the land grants.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State ex rel. Morton v. Northern Pacific Railway Co. · United States v. United States

2. ““Paragraph XXIX of the bill alleges that by treaties of September 17, 1851, and October 17, 1855, the United States ‘reserved’ certain lands for Indian tribes. * * * “In accordance with the master’s recommendation, the court below sustained the motion to dismiss paragraph XXIX on the ground that the lands in question were granted to the company by the Act of 1864 and the Resolution of 1870. We think the court was right. “By an Act of June 30, 1834, all lands lying west of the Mississippi River, not within the States of Missouri and Louisiana or the Territory of Arkansas, were designated as Indian country. The fee of all this territory was in the United States, subject to the Indian right of occupancy. The treaties of 1851 and 1855 did not alter the status of the lands described in them. The pur pose of those treaties was to establish peace and amity between warring Indian tribes inter sese and between the tribes and the United States. To this end the country or territory of each tribe was described and the tribes agreed to respect the boundaries named in the treaties. * * * “Section 3 limits the land grant to lands as to which the United States ‘have full title, not reserved, sold, granted, or otherwise appropriated, and free from preemption, or other claims or rights, at the time the line of said road is definitely fixed, * * *.’ The Government contends that this section excludes lands embraced within the treaty limits for the reason that the treaties ‘reserve’ all the lands”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Crow Tribe of Indians v. United States

3. ““Now, the grant provided for in its act of incorporation is every alternate section of public land not mineral (except coal and iron) designated by odd numbers to the amount of twenty alternate sections per mile on each side of said railroad line, through the Territories of the United States, and ten sections per mile on each side of said railroad whenever it passes through any State. “I am clearly of the opinion that by the joint resolution of May 31, 1870, Congress intended that the grant of twenty sections per mile on each side of the road to aid in the construction of said road should be extended to the whole line of the road including that part of the main line via the valley of the Columbia river through Portland to Puget Sound. This conclusion based alone upon the language of the joint resolution would be confirmed, if confii'mation was necessary, by the debates in Congress upon said resolution while it was pending and make clear the manifest pux-pose of said resolution.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State ex rel. Morton v. Northern Pacific Railway Co.