Niblack v. Seaberg Hotel Co.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 16 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 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ * * * The defense interposed here is that the consideration of the contract out of which the notes and trust deed originated, and which they were given to secure, was based upon the violation of a penal statute of the United States. We think the authorities uniformly hold that an act done in violation of a statutory prohibition is void, and confers no right upon the wrongdoer. Reinhart had no right, under the law, to assert the right to the exclusive use and possession of government land, to which he had no claim or color of title, made or acquired in good faith, or asserted right thereto by or under qlaim made in good faith, with a view to entry thereof at the proper land office, etc., and in asserting such right he was acting in violation of law, and any conveyance or contract which he might make to any portion of the land to which he asserted such right to the exclusive use and possession, and into which his assertion of such right to the exclusive use and possession entered, and by which he attempted to confer such right upon another party, was utterly void. * * * “We are aware that the rule above stated is subject to the qualification that when upon a survey of the statute and from its subject-matter, and the mischief sought to be prevented, it appears that the Legislature intended that the violation of the statutory prohibition should not render a contract void, effect must be given to that intention," but a survey of the statute in question fails to disclose any such”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Delgado v. Delgado