William Fontain Administrator of Frederick Kohne Deceased v. William Ravenel’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

41 federal appellate · 15 district · 42 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 149 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ When this country achieved its independence, the prerogatives of tho crown devolved upon the people of the states; and this power still remains with them, except so far as they have delegated a, portion of it to the federal government. The sovereign will is made known to ns by legislative enactment. The state as sovereign is parens pa trim. * * * The courts of the United States cannot exercise any equity powers except those conferred by acts of congress, and those judicial powers which the high court of chancery in England, acting under its judicial capacity as a court of equity, possessed and exercised at the time of the formation of the constitution of the United States. Powers not judicial, exercised by the chancellor merely as the representative of the sovereign, and by virtue of the king’s prerogative as parens patria, are not possessed by the circuit courts. ””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. American Bell Tel. Co. · Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors for the Bankruptcy Estate of Boston Regional Medical Center, Inc. v. Ricks

2. ““In Fontain v. Ravenel, 17 How. 369 , 384 [ 15 L. Ed. 80 , 86], Mr. Justice McLean, delivering the opinion of this court in a charity case, said: ‘When this country achieved its independence, the prerogatives of the crown devolved upon the people of the states. And this power still remains with them, except so far as they have delegated a portion of it to the federal government. The sovereign will is made known to us by legislative enactment. The state, as a sovereign, is the parens patrise.’ ””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Hoadly v. Chase · Hammon v. Hill

3. ““So, too, as relates to the jurisdiction oí the Circuit Court sitting as a court of chancery. It is undoubtedly true, as contended for in the argument of the complainant, in regard to equitable rights, that the power of the courts of chancery of the United States is, under the Constitution, to be regulated by the law of the English chancery; that is to say, the distinction between law and equity as recognized in the jurisprudence of England is to be observed in the courts of the United States, in administering the remedy for an existing right. The rule applies to the remedy, and not the right; and it does not follow that every right given by the English law, and which, at the time the Constitution was adopted, might have been enforced in the court of chancery, can also be enforced in a court of the United States. The right must be given by the law of the state, or of the United States. It is the form of remedy for which the Constitution provides; and, if a complainant has no right, the Circuit Court, sitting as a court of chancery, has nothing to remedy in any form of proceeding. “In the case before the court, the question is: Is the bequest which the complainants claim a valid one by the laws of Maryland? It is a question which, in its nature, necessarily depends upon the laws of the respective states. Some of the states sanction devises of this description, some do not, and undoubtedly it depends upon every state to determine for itself to whom, in wliat form, and by what i”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. James v. Gray