Patterson v. Paul’s Empirical Analysis
2007
Citation profile
18 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 18 later decisions — most recently September 2021
18 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on School Committee of Cambridge v. Superintendent of Schools · Labounty v. Vickers · McLaughlin v. Board of Selectmen · Sheftel v. Lebel · Suburban Land Co. v. Town of Billerica
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.
“The purpose of a declaratory judgment action is “to remove, and to afford relief from, uncertainty and insecurity with respect to rights, duties, status and other legal relations, and it is to be liberally construed and administered.” G.L.c. 231 A, §9. See Kilroy v. O’Connor, 324 Mass. 238, 242 (1949) (relief in nature of declaratory judgment designed to settle completely controversy submitted for determination). General Laws c. 231 A, §8, states that “(w]hen declaratory relief is sought, all persons shall be made parties who have or claim any interest which would be affected by the declaration, and no declaration shall prejudice the rights of persons not parties to the proceeding.” An action for declaratory relief will preempt future litigation among the affected parties by resolving any uncertainties about their rights and obligations. See School Comm. of Cambridge v. Superintendent of Schs. of Cambridge, 320 Mass. 516, 518 (1946); Board of Appeals of Rockport v. DeCarolis, 32 Mass.App.Ct. 348, 353 , (1992).”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“Conditions, or restrictions, unlimited as to time, by which the title or use of real property is affected, shall be limited to the term of thirty years after the date of the deed or other instrument or the date of the probate of the will creating them. .. [with exceptions not here relevant] [emphasis supplied].”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[a]n affirmative easement 'creates a nonpossessory right to enter and use land in the possession of another and obligates the possessor not to interfere with the uses authorized by the easement.'”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.