People v. Stephens’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 1 district · 18 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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““By section 1 of article 14 the use of all water heretofore or hereafter appropriated for sale, rental, or distribution is expressly declared to be a public use. It is not left to the legislature, as formerly, to say whether it shall be a public use or. not, but the constitution itself declares It to be such, and then makes the use subject to the regulation and control of the state (that is to say, of the legislature), in the manner to be prescribed by law, to wit, by statute law, subject, however, to certain enumerated provisions contained in the constitution itself; among them, to provisions in respect to the rates or compensation to he collected by any person, company, or corporation, for the use of water supplied to any city and county; or city, or town, or the inhabitants thereof. Such rates or compensation the constitution expressly declares shall be fixed in a certain specified manner, at a certain time, and by a certain body; and the body failing to do so is expressly made ‘subject to peremptory process to compel action, at tlie suit of any party interested, and liable to such further processes and penalties as tlie legislature may prescribe.’ But by the next section of the same article of the constitution the right to collect the rates or compensation so established is declared to be a franchise, ‘and can not be exercised except by authority and in the maimer prescribed by law,’ — that is, by statute law. But, of course, the constitution contemplated tlie enacting by”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Lanning v. Osborne

2. ““When tlie sovereign authority of the state, either in its Constitution or through its Legislature, has created a right and expressed and defined the conditions under which it may be enjoyed, it is not within the province of a municipality, where such right is sought to be exercised or enjoyed, to impose additional burdens or terms as a condition to its exercise. The Constitution does not authorize the municipality to require a permit as a condition upon which the pipes may be laid in its streets, and its claim of a right to require a permit includes the right to refuse one, and the right to annex one condition to the exercise of tlie privilege implies the right to annex others, which may at least impair, if not in fact amount to a denial of, its exercise. The provision that the work is to lie done under the direction of the superintendent of streets gives nil the protection for the use of the streets that could be obtained under a permit; and, under the provision authorizing tlie municipality to prescribe regulations for damages and indemnity for damages, tlie city will be fully protected against any pecuniary loss or detriment.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Sunset Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. City of Pomona