Lemay v. Williams’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 12 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 14 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““In a legal sense any unlawful act done wilfully and purposely to the injury of another, is as against that person, malicious; the proof of malice need not be direct but may be inferred from circumstances. “The position is fully sustained in the case of Commonwealth v. Snell-ing, 15 Pick. [Mass.] 321, in which Parker, J., said, ‘the term malice in this form of action is not to be considered in the sense of spite or hatred against an individual but of malus animus, and as denoting that the party is actuated by improper and indirect motives,’ and in thus holding, Justice Parker substantially sustains the first and second instructions of the plaintiff, in which the court instructed the jury that, ‘if the defendant Lemay did not act as a man of caution and prudence, impartially, reasonably and without prejudice and malice, or a desire to gain an undue advantage of the plaintiff, they may find that the order was issued without probable cause, and may infer malice on the part of the defendant.’ ””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Glenn v. Hoerner Boxes, Inc.

2. “[W]hen a party in fact has no valid cause of action ... these circumstances with others, tend to show a want of probable cause, and if sufficiently strong may be used as evidence of malice, and an intention to injure the party against whom the process is issued, because the party suing out the process must be presumed to know whether he has a legal debt, ... and if in fact the creditor sues out a process without a legal debt, ... these circumstances strongly tend to fix upon him the penalties of the law for malicious prosecution, which may, however, to some extent be repelled by other evidence tending to show probable cause.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Stokes v. Southern States Cooperative, Inc.