Bowman v. Cockrill’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 33 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 34 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““[Statutes of limitations] can never operate where no cause of action exists; and can never operate except when rights have already been disturbed. The effect of the operation of the statute of limitations is not to create a cause of action; its effect is to take away a cause of action already created by acts of one or both of the parties. The effect is not to disturb rights, nor to transfer property; but to leave rights and property just where the parties themselves have voluntarily chosen to leave them during the running of the statute. The statutes of limitations simply say this to the party injured: ‘You have voluntarily allowed your property (real or personal as the case may be,) or the money you claim as compensation for some injury done to you, (on either contract or tort,) to remain in the possession of your adversary during a certain period without any effort to recover it, and now we will allow it to remain in the same place and in the same condition forever.’ “. . . After a cause of action is once barred by a statute of limitations it is not in the power of the legislature to revive it by subsequent legislation.” 6 Kan. at 338-40 .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Harding v. K.C. Wall Products, Inc.