Caffrey v. Dudgeon’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 29 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 30 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The argument which has been pressed upon our consideration, that an affirmance of the judgment would produce great injustice and hardship to the appellant, can have no 'force' with us, when our duty is plainly marked out and clearly defined by the repeated decisions of this and other courts.' Our statutes have prescribed the powers, defined the duties, and fixed the boundaries to the jurisdiction of justices of the peace. These statutes must be respected. The court cannot change the law. We can only administer it. Every officer is presumed to know his duty. If he does not, and transcends his powers, the responsibility rests with him and those who evoked the exercise of unauthorized powers. The better and safer rule is to hold all public officers to a rigid and faithful discharge of their duties as defined by law, and to discourage the exercise of unauthorized powers. The conclusion that we have reached does not deprive the appellant of a remedy, for the justice of the peace who issued the writ, the plaintiff in that action who procured him to issue it, and the officer who served it, if the want of jurisdiction appeared on the face of the writ, were trespassers, and as such are liable for the consequences of their wrongful and illegal acts.” (1. c. 521.)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Boller v. Davis