Bailey v. Hayden’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 31 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 34 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““We are constrained to hold that the statute, construing the two sections together according to their most obvious intent, contemplates but one measure of damages — the actual and compensatory — which shall be trebled as against the wilful wrongdoer and allowed singly as against the casual or involuntary trespasser.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 34 Wash. 2d 645 - Bill v. Gattavara · Fredericksen v. Snohomish County

2. ““If the taking was inadvertent, the owner is entitled to such damages, and only such, as are compensatory; that is to say, he is entitled to what the trees would be worth on a sale in the condition in which they were at the time of the taking, unenhanced by the labor of making into logs and placing in the water. But if the taking was by wilful trespass, then he is entitled to recover in damages the enhanced value of the timber without any deduction for labor and expense bestowed upon it. In the latter case the damages are not merely compensatory but punitive. In an action of trover, in the absence of statute, the one or the other of these would be the measure of damages, and which of these would be dependent upon turpitude or lack of turpitude in the taker. This is the rule according to the decided weight of authority, both in this country and in England, in cases where no damage to the land itself is claimed.” (Citing a number of cases.)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Gunstone v. Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound Railway Co.

3. ““But whether the larger damages be frankly called vindictive damages, or are allowed on the last mentioned ground without any express name, their nature is the same. It is obvious that the increased measure is allowed, not as compensation to the person wronged, but as punishment to the wrongdoer. It is not a mere question of terms, but of the inherent quality of the thing. The increased measure is punitive in its very nature, in that it exceeds the true measure of compensation. It is plain that the person whose trees are cut suffers exactly the same injury where the trespass is involuntary as where it is wilful. In each case he suffers the loss of his trees.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 47 Wash. 2d 879 - Grays Harbor County v. Bay City Lumber Co.