Walker v. Hughes’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 district · 3 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. ““The material question to consider, therefore, is whether there was a vacancy in the office in dispute at the expiration of Mr. Hart’s term. In determining this question, section 5 of article 15 of the Constitution must, also, be read in connection with section 9 of article 3. The word ‘vacancy,’ as applied to a public office, ordinarily has no peculiar or technical meaning, and there is nothing to indicate that it was not used in its ordinary and usual sense in the Constitution of 1897. In that sense, the word ‘vacancy’ means that the office is unoccupied and without an incumbent, who has a legal right to continue therein until the happening of some future event, [citations omitted] Section 5 of article 15 was apparently enacted for the very purpose of preventing a possible vacancy or interregnum in an office where there was not a properly qualified successor at the expiration of the usual statutory term of such office, [citations omitted] It is true that the four year term for which Mr. Hart was elected would have expired in January of the present year if the law had provided for the election of his successor in November of 1926; but where there is an express constitutional provision that all public officers shall hold their respective offices until their successors shall be duly qualified, as in section 5 of article 15, the mere expiration of the usual statutory term does not create a vacancy if there is a person who has the lawful right to perform the duties of such offic”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State Ex Rel. Gebelein v. Killen

2. “The purpose of a holding over provision is to prevent a possible vacancy or interregnum in a public office where there is no properly qualified successor at the expiration of the usual statutory term, so that the public business will not be interrupted or subjected to doubt or dispute, (emphasis added).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State Ex Rel. Gebelein v. Killen

3. ““In a proper case he holds de jure in the full sense of the term and is entitled to the emoluments of the office as of right, as, for example, where there has been no election of a successor, or where a duly elected successor is disqualified to hold the office.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State Ex Rel. Gebelein v. Killen