Van Deusen v. Jackson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““A zoning board of appeals cannot under the semblance of a variance exercise legislative powers [citations omitted]. The legislative body forms zoning policy in the shape of a comprehensive plan after ‘reasonable consideration, among other things, as to the character of the district and its peculiar suitability for particular uses’ [citation omitted]. The comprehensive plan, essentially general in scope, may cause disportionate injury to a property owner and, for the purpose of easing that injury, the board of appeals hears and determines individual applications for relief ‘in harmony with . . . [the] general purpose and intent’ of the ordinance [citation omitted]; and its determination to grant a variance must rest on ‘practical difficulties or unnecessary hardships in the way of carrying out the strict letter of such ordinances’ [citation omitted]. Thus, the statute makes plain that both the general purpose and intent of the ordinance, reflecting the policy of the legislative body, and the special case of the individual property owner, reflecting a practical difficulty or unnecessary hardship, must be considered by the board of appeals in varying the application of the ordinance. “When the variance violates the general purpose of the ordinance, the board of appeals invades the province of the legislative body, and the grant is invalid for want of authority [citations omitted]. More precisely, the board of appeals must make certain that the effect of a variance would not int”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Stice v. Gribben-Allen Motors, Inc.

2. ““. . . As was noted above, the power of a zoning board of appeals to vary the ordinance may be exerted only where the applicant demonstrates that the ordinance has created practical difficulties or unnecessary hardships. All that [the land owner] proved before the [board of zoning appeals] was that he had failed to develop his property before the time that the ordinance was amended to place it in a more highly restricted district. To put it bluntly, convenience rather than hardship to the developer was the evidence before the respondents; and that ground cannot serve as a foundation for the variance [citations omitted]. No proof was offered of economic loss growing out of a showing that reasonable return could not be expected from the property as zoned under the ordinance [citations omitted].” (P. 62.)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Stice v. Gribben-Allen Motors, Inc.