Bissell v. Durfee’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 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 3 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““There is no doubt, under the constitution, that the only bonds covered are official bonds. Had the body of the statute been confined to persons filling those ambiguous positions which depend on the appointment of the public or some of the public functionaries, it is possible that such enumeration might be regarded as a legislative definition of what was meant by the term ‘official.’ But we need not determine how far this could be done. As the object of confining acts to the purview of their titles is to prevent the legislature as well as the people from being misled as to their contents, it is manifest that a definition might be so far from the natural meaning of the title as to be quite as deceptive as any other variance. In the present case there are no such definitions given; and, as already pointed out, the body of the act contains no reference to any particular class or classes of bonds, but covers every bond contemplated by law for any purpose.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Slotemaker v. International Fruit & Produce Co.