Charles Richardson v. David Goodard’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

14 federal appellate · 3 district · 10 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 51 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““It is matter of history that the state of Massachusetts was colonized by men who lied from ecclesiastical oppression, that they might enjoy liberty of conscience, and that, while they enforced the most rigid observance of the Lord’s Day as a Sabbath, or day of ceremonial rest, they repudiated with abhorrence all saints’ days and festivals observed by the churches of Rome or of England. They ‘did not desire to be again brought in bondage, to observe days and months, and times and years.’ And while they piously named a day in every year which they recommended that Christians should spend in fasting and prayer, they imposed it on no man’s conscience to abstain from his worldly occupations on such day, much less did they anticipate that it would be perverted into an idle holiday. The proclamation of the Governor is but a recommendation. It has not the force of law, nor was it so intended. The duties of fasting and prayer are voluntary, and not of' compulsion, and holiday is a privilege, not a duty. In almost every state in the Union a day of thanksgiving is appointed in the fall of the year by the Governor, because there is no ecclesiastical authority which would be acknowledged by the various denominations. It is an excellent custom, but it binds no man’s conscience or requires him to abstain from labor.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Schwaner v. Kerr

2. “The policy of the law holds the carrier to a rigorous liability; and in the discharge of it, he is not bound to await the convenience or accommodate himself to the caprice or conscientious scruples of the consignee. * * * The consignee may think it proper to keep Saturday as his Sabbath, and to observe Friday as a fast day, or other * * * festivals, or he may postpone the removal of the goods because his warehouse is not in order to receive them; but he cannot exercise his right at the expense of others, and compel the carrier to stand as insurer of his property, to suit his convenience or his conscience.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 84 Ind. App. 283 - American Railway Express Co. v. Rhody