Sprague v. Washburn’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The doctrine of the “law of the case” rests on the sound policy that in the interest of finality and intra-court comity a Superior Court justice should not, in subsequent proceedings involving the same case, overrule or reconsider the decision of another justice. Such a rule of practice promotes the orderly conduct of an action and discourages judge shopping. While based on important policy considerations, the law of the case is not as rigidly applied as the doctrine of res judicata. The rule does not serve as a complete bar to reconsideration of an issue when the prior ruling is provisional or lacks clarity, or the error is of such character that it should be corrected at trial.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Lord v. Murphy