Ayers v. Harris’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 6 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 7 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The present case differs materially from the two cases just cited in this important particular: That the evidence of Johnson and Duty both shows that, all tlie lines of the Moreno grant were actually traced and measured upon the ground, while in the case of Phillips v. Ayres there was no such proof, and the west and north lines were treated in the opinion of Judge Moore in that case as lost lines, or at least as lines that had not been found; and in the later case, decided in the supreme court of the United States, the evidence was that Johnson marked, without measuring the east line of 1he grant, from the northeast corner to the southeast corner on the river. If it is permissible to reverse the calls, and trace the lines a different way from that indicated in the field notes, in cases where the proof shows some of the lines were not actually run upon the ground, but their length was determined by estimation or calculation simply, it seems to us it is infinitely less hazardous to adopt such a rule in a case where all the lines are shown to have been actually measured by the surveyor who made the original survey. The object of all rules which have been formulated by the courts for locating, fixing, and determining boundaries has been to ascertain and discover, if possible, the footsteps of the surveyor, and in this way identify the survey that was actually made, and it is apparent that a charge which prescribes such a rule for the conduct of the jury can lead to no mischievou”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Platt v. Vermillion