439 So. 2d 357 - State v. Broom’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

26 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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"Except as otherwise provided by this constitution, no one of these branches, [the legislative, executive and judicial] nor any person holding office in one of them, shall exercise power belonging to either of the others."”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Bruneau v. Edwards · 439 So. 2d 348 - Com'r of Agr. v. Plaquemines Par. Com'n Coun.

2. “[E]mphasizing the constitutional inhibition that no person or collection of persons holding office in any one of the three departments of the government shall exercise power properly belonging to either of the other departments, we quoted [169 La. loc. cit. 1063 and 126 So. loc. cit. 554] from Washington's Farewell Address, as published in Sparks' Writings of Washington, vol. 12, pp. 382-398, thus: "It is important, likewise, that the habit of thinking in a free country should inspire caution, in those intrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of the love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositories, and constituting each the Guardian of the Public Weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments, ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers ”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Bruneau v. Edwards · 639 So. 2d 707 - State v. All Pro Paint & Body Shop, Inc.

3. “Due to the complexity of our social and industrial activities, the decisions display an increasing tendency to hold as nonlegislative the authority conferred upon commissions and boards to determine the facts or state of things upon which the law intends to make its action depend. It is now well settled that the Legislature may make the operation or application of a statute contingent upon the existence of certain conditions, and may delegate to some executive or administrative board the power to determine the existence of such facts and to carry out the terms of the statute. So long as the regulation or action of the official or board authorized by statute does not in effect determine what the law shall be, or involve the exercise of primary and independent discretion, but only determines within prescribed limits some fact upon which the law by its own terms operates, such regulation is administrative and not legislative in its nature.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 639 So. 2d 707 - State v. All Pro Paint & Body Shop, Inc. · 470 So. 2d 988 - Johnson v. Odom