Denison v. Denison’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 1 district · 31 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 35 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Plainly the statute contains no definition of who are to constitute the next of kin to whom a right of recovery is granted. But, as speaking generally under our dual system of government, who are next, of kin is determined by the legislation of the various states to whose authority that subject is normally committed, it would seem to be clear that the absence of a definition in the aet of Congress plainly indicates the purpose of Congress to leave the determination of that question to the state law. But, it is urged, as next of kin was a term well known at common law, it is to be presumed that the words were used as having their common-law significance, and therefore as excluding all persons not included in the term under the common law; meaning, of course, the law of England as it existed at the time of the separation from the mother country. Leaving aside the misapplication of the rule of construction relied upon, it is obvious that the contention amounts to saying that Congress, by the mere statement of a class, that is, next of kin, without defining whom the class embraces, must be assumed to have overthrown the local law of the states, and substituted another law for it, when conceding that there was power in Congress to do so, it is clear that no such extreme result eould possibly be attributed to the act of Congress without express and unambiguous provisions rendering such conclusion necessary. The truth of this view will be made at once additionally apparent by consi”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Keyway Stevedoring Co. v. Clark

2. ““The civil and canon laws * * * have no operation in England, except only as they may have been incorporated into the system of the common law, and in ascertaining what was the law of England in regard to the mode and manner of contracting marriage prior to or independently of the marriage act of 26 George II, passed in 1753, we do not appeal to the civil or canon law as such, but to the common law as a system peculiar to England and her institutions.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Furth v. Furth