Silsbee v. Stockle’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

20 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 22 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The early statutory form did not contain the words which the supervisor has omitted (Comp. Laws 1857, § 806), and the change in the form was made in a. revision of the tax law in 1869. If the change in the form' whereby these words were brought into it had no important purpose in view, we may well hold that the proceedings are not affected by the supervisor continuing the use of the form which had been in use before. But it is a matter of common knowledge that the change was made for the very purpose of effecting an important change in the assessments. It was notorious that supervisors had been in the practice of evading the previous law, and making assessments at a mere fraction of the real value of the property, when sworn to make it at the cash value. It was very easy to excuse the evasion of duty under the pretense that the cash value of the property was only what it would bring if forced upon the market; and the law was amended for the very purpose of taking away this excuse. It will not do to say that such an amendment is unimportant, and therefore may be disregarded with impunity; it goes to the very essentials of the assessment, and was intended, not only to control that, but also, through that, all the subsequent proceedings. There is not the slightest doubt the Legislature intended that the adoption of the form given, or one that should be equivalent in substance, .should be compulsory in every instance. The failure to adopt it is therefore a fatal defect. Clark v.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Blue Iron Mining Co. v. City of Negaunee

2. “syllabus of the case: ‘ - u The statutory provisions that no sale for delinquent taxes shall be held invalid unless it be made to appear that all legal taxes were paid or tendered, and that all taxes shall be presumed to be legally assessed until the contrary is affirmatively shown (Comp. L., § 1129), are unconstitutional so far as they sustain sales for taxes which are in part illegal.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Culbertson v. H. Witbeck Co.