Kelley v. Earle’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

100 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 105 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““While our research discloses no case squarely interpreting this Section as applying solely to private corporations, in the cases of Commonwealth, to use, v. Philadelphia, 193 Pa. 236 , and Commonwealth v. Emmers, 221 Pa. 298, 313 , this court intimated that the section is to be so restricted . . . Obviously, from the very nature and purpose of these corporate bodies, created to assist the State in its essential operations, a distinction must be drawn from the larger class of private or quasi public corporations to which, and to which alone, the constitutional provision was clearly meant to apply. See also Moers v. Reading, 21 Pa. 188 ; Board of Health v. Diamond Mills Paper Co., 51 Atl. 1019, 1020 . . . . “In Article III, Section 7, of the Constitution is found a prohibition against ‘granting to any corporation, association or individual any special or exclusive privilege or immunity. . . .’ This section of our Constitution was held in Commonwealth v. Emmers, supra, not to apply to municipal corporations or agencies of the State.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Barnett v. Borough of Aliquippa

2. ““This was true also in Tranter v. Allegheny County Authority, supra, where the court, through Mr. Justice Linn, concludes: ‘This difference between a pledge of property and a pledge of income has been said to distinguish a transaction which creates a debt within the constitutional limitation from one creating a debt not within it.’. . . “Much stress has been laid on the various cases that have heretofore been decided. But these cases are and were distinguished in Tranter v. Allegheny County Authority, supra, and need not be further discussed in this opinion. There is one outstanding factor which the additional facts present to us — the immunity of State property and the inability of creditors to compel payments beyond the sums available for current revenues — which differentiates this contract from the contracts involved in McKinnon v. Mertz, 225 Pa. 85 ; Lesser v. Warren Boro., 237 Pa. 501; Brown v. City of Corry, supra. The credit of the Commonwealth as such is not behind these bonds.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Turnpike Revenue Bonds

3. ““It was conceded at the argument that contracts or leases to meet recurrent needs the obligation of which is to be met by the Commonwealth from current revenues extending beyond the biennium are not within the constitutional limitation. . . . Any expense that recurs with regularity and certainty and is necessary for [its] existence ... or for the health, comfort and perhaps convenience of the inhabitants may well be called an ordinary expense’ : Brown v. City of Corry, 175 Pa. 528 . What condition is more recurring than the perennial obligation of this Commonwealth to care for helpless, indigent, epileptic, feeble-minded, blind, tubercular and other patients or inmates that overflow the institutions named in the Act? Wherein are the objects to be attained by the Act by the building program a new burden? These conditions are with us always and recur with an oppressive regularity.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 30 Pa. D. & C. 611 - State Authority Loans to Retirement Boards