Morton v. Watson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 district · 8 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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““A proceeding of this nature is neither in its form or substance n civil or a criminal action. It partakes of the nature of neither. A disbarment proceeding is not an action within the meaning of that term as employed in the Code. The parties who signed the information upon which this proceeding was based were not plaintiffs in a case. On the contrary, they were more nearly friends of the court, their action having been evidently actuated by ¡i desire to assist it in an inquiry into the conduct of one of the members of its bar. To designate them as parties to an action, whereby they might be mulcted in costs, should the charges preferred be not sustained, would slrongly tend to discourage disclosures of wrongful conduct upon the part of members of the legal profession, and would therefore be against sound public policy. At law, costs are the mere creatures of statutes. As there is no law specially providing for taxation of costs in proceedings of this nature, and as the awarding of costs depends upon statute, the lower couri was without power to tax them against these informers, who, in the sense employed by the Code, were no parties to the proceedings.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. In re Watt & Dohan · State ex rel. Dill v. Martin

2. ““We do not hold that it is indispensable that a hearing of this nature should be suspended because a criminal prosecution is pending charging the person against whom a disbarment proceeding is being taken with the same facts until the criminal cause is terminated. A finding in a disbarment proceeding either adverse to or in favor of the person accused perhaps would in no way affect such criminal action; nor Avould a verdict of either guilty or not guilty in a criminal action be binding on a court in a disbarment proceeding wherein the same act is charged.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. In re Disbarment Proceedings of Newby