Eaton v. Langley’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

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 37 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““In considering the justice of permitting the appellant to appropriate the cross-ties to his own use, the invasion of his rights and the injury done to him by appellee should not be overlooked. The trees belonged to him. They were standing upon his land, and he had the right to hold them as they were. No one had the right to take them from him, convert them into ties, and force him to accept their value at the time of the conversion. He may have preferred to have them to stand; and, if left standing’ for a few years, they might yield him great profit, and the enhancement of their value by the labor of appellee might be a poor compensation for the wrong done. But, whether he wished to sell or not, it would be gross injustice to permit appellee to force him to sell. He is entitled to the protection of the laws. Deny to him the right to the cross-ties, and force him to accept the value of his timber when appropriated by a trespasser, as it was at the time of the conversion, and he has no adequate protection. The injury inflicted by the trespasser would be borne in part by the innocent owner, and the guilty would escape. ‘Such a doctrine,’ as said by Chief Justice Cooley, ‘offers a premium to heedlessness and -blunders, and a temptation by false evidence to give an intentional trespass the appearance of an innocent mistake.’ ””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Burbridge v. Bradley Lumber Co.