White v. Leovy’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 4 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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ The answer of the defendant H. J. Leovy,” the opinion further says, “ is to the effect that the land claimed by the plaintiff and called for by his patent ‘ was entered according to an official plat or survey made by Gf. F. Connelly in 1836, [and] . . . was all within a distance of less than two miles of .the Mississippi Eiver, and all territory to the west of that -was at the date of that survey, and by the plat by which White claims to have bought, West Bay. ‘That a few years after Connelly made said survey the Jump Outlet broke through, and the accumulation on the seaward side of said marsh and in said bay gradually raised the bed of said bay until the whole of said West. Bay became marsh land, connecting with swamp land to the westward, and at the time of said lands being transferred to the State, in. 1849 and 1850, by Congress it was not a navigable bay or part of the sea.’ •“The answer then charges that the plaintiff, well knowing all these facts, and endeavoring to perpetrate a fraud upon the State, ‘ entered the lands originally allotted by Connelly, and under his patent 4058 is endeavoring to claim over sixteen thousand (16,000) more acres in said township’ than he is entitled to claim thereunder, and by ‘ a. malicious suit now seeks to cast a cloud upon the title of others who have entered the western lands in said, township . . . honestly and according to law, and who are in the peaceable and undisturbed possession of the same.’ ””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. White v. Leovy

2. ““ The description of the land which was purchased by the plaintiff, which was evidenced by the patent that issued to the plaintiff, is of the following tenor, viz.‘All the unsurveyed marsh west of lots fronting on the right bank of the Mississippi, except section No. sixteen (16), in township twenty-two (22) south, of range thirty-one (31) east, in the southeastern west of the river land district, containing thirty-eight hundred and forty (3840) acres, according to the official plat of the survey of said lands in the state land office.’ “ The number of the patent is 4058, and it states that the purchase was made with certificate No. 2251, N. S. L.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. White v. Leovy

3. “We are of opinion that inasmuch as the patent conveys ‘all the unsurveyed marsh west of the lots fronting on the Mississippi,’ those lots must be taken as the initial point from which the area is to be computed, same being the only fixed and definite boundary mentioned in the patent. “Thus considering the law and the evidence, we are of opinion that there should be judgment in favor of the defendant H. J. Leovy maintaining his patents as reflecting the paramount title to the lands which are therein described, and perpetuating his writ of injunction.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. White v. Leovy