Joiner v. Winston’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 district · 25 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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““By the common law, every man was bound to keep his cattle within his own close, and to prevent them from escaping or straying upon the premises of his neighbor. If they did escape, going without permission upon the lands of another, the owner was liable in trespass for the resulting damages. This rule of the common law is not of force in this state, being inconsistent with the general statutes in refereiice to estrays, inelosures, and trespasses by cattle, which, in effect, treat lands uninclosed as common pasture, and require the owner'or occupier of lands, seeking protection from trespasses by cattle running at large, to inclose against them. N. & C. R. R. Co. v. Peacock, 25 Ala. 229 ; Smith v. Causey, 22 Ala. 568 ; Tankersly v. Wedgworth, 22 Ala. 677 ; Woodward v. Purcy, 20 Ala. 279 . “The plain purpose of the special statute on which this action is founded, entitled ‘An act in relation to fences, the protection of crops and other property in Sumter and Pickens counties,’ approved February 19, 1867 (Pamph. Acts, 1866-67, p. 586), was the adoption and establishment of the rule of the common law in the counties named, or such-parts thereof as were designated by the commissioners’ court. By the terms of the statute, whenever any particular part of the county was designated and subjected to the operation of the statute, the boundaries thereof, whether marked by monuments or surrounded by inclosures or not, became at once, by operation of law, a lawful fence. Whoever permitted”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Ex Parte Fowler · Ex parte Fowler