Zimmerman v. Knox’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 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 7 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““This instruction was wholly inapplicable under the testimony, and we think erroneous. We have searched the record in vain to find any testimony which tends in any degree to show that John D. Knox had begun any suit, civil or criminal, in Ford-county, against the defendant; and there is no pretense on the part of the defendant that any such suit had been instituted nor that any order of arrest had been issued in any case against the plaintiff. The officer acted alone under the telegraphic communication admitted to have been sent by John D. Knox, directing the arrest and- detention of the plaintiff, and it was conceded that whatever proceedings were had in his arrest were for the purpose of enabling the collection of the money due from the plaintiff Zimmerman to Knox. Under these facts the imprisonment was illegal”—”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Ft. Smith W. R. Co. v. Collins

2. ““ It is true that the giving of an instruction upon an abstract proposition of law, and which is irrelevant to the issues in the case, is not reversible error, unless it may be fairly inferred that the jury were misled thereby.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. St. Louis & San Francisco Railway Co. v. Sullivan