The Bridge Proprietors v. The Hoboken Company’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 federal appellate · 2 district · 24 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 166 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““We answer to this, as this court has repeatedly said, whenever an occasion has been presented for its expression, that its rule of interpretation has invariably been that the constructions given by the courts of the states to state legislation and to state Constitutions have been conclusive upon this court, with a single exception, and that is when it has been called upon to interpret the contracts of states, ‘though they have been made in the forms of law,’ or by the instrumentality of a state’s authorized functionaries, in conformity with state legislation. It has never been denied, nor is it now, that the Supreme Court of the United States has an appellate power to revise the judgment of the Supreme Court of a state, whenever such a court shall adjudge that not to be a contract which has been alleged, in the forms of legal proceedings, by a litigant, to be one, within the meaning of that clause of. the Constitution of the United States which inhibits the states'from passing any law impairing the obligations of contracts. Of what use would the appellate power be to the litigant who feels himself aggrieved by some particular state legislation, if this court could not decide, independently of all adjudication by the Supreme Court of a state, whether or not the phraseology of the instrument in controversy was expressive of a contract and within the protection of the Constitution of the United States; and that its obligation should be enforced, notwithstanding a contrary concl”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Sunset Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. City of Pomona

2. “(1) “ Where is drawn in question the validity of a treaty, or statute of, or authority exercised under, the United States, and the decision is against their validity; ” (2) “ Where is drawn in question the validity of a statute of, or an authority exercised under, any State on the ground of their being repugnant to the Constitution, treaties or laws of the United States, and the decision is in favor of their validity ; ” (3) “ Or where any title, right, privilege or immunity is claimed under the Constitution, or any treaty or statute of, or commission held or authority exercised under, the United States, and the decision is against the title, right, privilege or immunity specially set up and claimed by either party under such Constitution, statute, commission or authority.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Columbia Water Power Co. v. Columbia Electric Street Railway Light & Power Co.