Legille v. Dann’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

21 federal appellate · 16 district · 24 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 104 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “... a presumption imposes on the party against whom it is directed the burden of going forward with evidence to rebut or meet the presumption”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. in Re the Yoder Company · Department of the Army, U.S. Army Aberdeen Proving Ground Installation Support Activity v. Federal Labor Relations Authority, Department of the Army, U.S. Army Aberdeen Proving Ground Installation Support Activity v. Federal Labor Relations Authority, Department of the Army, U.S. Army Armament, Munitions and Chemical Command, Rock Island, Illinois v. Federal Labor Relations Authority

2. “[a]s Dean Wigmore has explained, “the peculiar effect of a presumption ‘of law’ (that is, the real presumption) is merely to invoke a rule of law compelling the (trier of fact) to reach a conclusion in the absence of evidence to the contrary from the opponent. If the opponent does offer evidence to the contrary (sufficient to satisfy the judge’s requirement of some evidence), the presumption disappears as a rule of law, and the case is in the (factfinder’s) hands free from any rule.” As more poetically the explanation has been put, “(p)resumptions ... may be looked on as the bats of the law, flitting in the twilight, but disappearing in the sunshine of actual facts.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Cooper v. First Government Mortg. and Investors Corp.

3. “[T]he presumption "of law” — the procedural rule dictating a factual conclusion in the absence of contrary evidence — [is distinguishable] from the presumption "of fact," which in reality is not a presumption at all, see 9 J. Wigmore, Evidence § 2491 at 288-289 (3d ed. 1940), and from the "conclusive" presumption, which is actually a substantive rule of law. See 9 J. Wigmore, Evidence § 2492 (3d ed. 1940); C. McCormick, Evidence § 342 at 804 (2d ed. 1972).... A presumption, ... of law, is an inference which the law directs the (trier of fact) to draw if it finds a given set of facts....”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 15 Cl. Ct. 621 - Morowitz v. United States