Chouteau v. Commissioner’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

14 federal appellate · 3 district · 2 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 36 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “* * * As to Mary Blackbird, we are disposed to yield our assent to the soundness of the contention. She is a restricted full-blood Osage. Her property is under the supervising control of the United States. She_ is its ward, and we cannot agree that because the income statute, Act of 1918 ( 40 Stat. 1057 ), and Act of 1921 ( 42 Stat. 227 ), subjects “the net income of every individual” to the tax, this is alone sufficient to make the Acts applicable to her. Such holding would be contrary to the almost unbroken policy of Congress in dealing with its Indian wards and their affairs.. Whenever they and their interests have been the subject affected by legislation they have been named and their interests specifically dealt with. Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U.S. 94, 100 , 5 S.Ct. 41, 44 , 28 L.Ed. 643 : “General acts of Congress did not apply to Indians,. unless so expressed as to clearly manifest an intention to include them.” In Choate v. Trapp, 224 U.S. 665 , 32 S.Ct. 565 , 56 L.Ed. 941 , the court, after noting the general rule that exemptions from taxation are to be strictly construed, said at page 675 of 224 U.S., 32 S.Ct. 565, 569: “But in the government’s dealings with the Indians the rule is exactly the contrary. The construction, instead of being strict, is liberal; doubtful expressions, instead of being resolved in favor of the United States, are to be resolved in favor of a weak and defenseless people, who are wards of the nation, and dependent wholly upon its protection and goo”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Big Eagle v. United States · Eagle v. United States

2. “upon the issuance of such certificate of competency the lands of such member (except his or her homestead) shall become subject to taxation, and such member (with exceptions not here material) shall have the right to manage, control, and dispose of his or her lands the same as any citizen of the United States.”

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