O'Connell v. Lamb’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 9 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 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The declaration shows that the obligee named in the bond is an unincorporated society, composed of many persons, of whom a few bring this action at law, on the bond, in their own names for the use of all the members. By the rule at common law this is forbidden. It can be maintained only in the names of all, however numerous. There is no authority, so far as we are advised, for supposing that it has been abrogated or modified in this State. We have considered the cases specially cited, but time would not permit even a cursory examination of the many noted in 22 Am. & Eng. Enc. of Law, 806-7, and appended to the case of Phipps v. Jones, 20 Pa. St. 260, as reported in 59 Am. Dec. 711 . It must suffice to say that we discover no difference of opinion as to the common-law rule, and that such of the cases as were not in equity, where it is different, were under statutes expressly authorizing them. If the law of Illinois did not empower the plaintiffs to maintain this action in their own names alone, of course the constitution of the association could not do it.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 238 Ill. App. 123 - Cahill v. Plumbers, Gas & Steam Fitters' & Helpers' Local 93