Thomas v. Ford’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 35 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““It is certainly a settled doctrine in this State that public roads or ways of any kind can only be established by public authority, or by dedication, or by long user by the public, which, though not strictly prescription, yet bears so close an analogy to it that it is not inappropriate to apply to the right thus acquired the term prescriptive. Hence the existence of a public way may be established by evidence of an uninterrupted user by the public for twenty years; the presumption being that such long continued use and enjoyment by the public of such way had a legal rather than an illegal origin. Day v. Allender, 22 Md. 511 .””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Mt. Sinai Nursing Home, Inc. v. Pleasant Manor Corp.

2. “[I]n the absence of any ... special rule upon the subject, the general rule of practice is that the exception must be taken and noted at the time of the ruling made; but the reduction of the exception to form may and should be deferred to some more convenient time after the trial, but during the same term of court, when the exception should be presented for the signature and seal of the judge.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Montgomery County v. McNeece

3. “could not be urged by the public ... as the foundation of a legal presumption of a grant, and thus justify a claim by prescription....” Thomas, 63 Md. at 353 (emphasis added). The”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Clickner v. Magothy River Ass'n