Burke v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

23 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 23 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “It is said that the adoption of statutes in several of the States, making this kind of injury actionable, shows that the courts have no right to furnish the redress without statutory authority. It has always been the pride of the common law that it permitted no wrong with damage, without a remedy. In all the cases where this class of injuries have occurred, proceeding alone from the malice of the defendant, it is held to be a wrong accompanied by damage. That courts have failed to apply the remedy has ever been felt a reproach to the administration of the law; and the fact that the people have regarded this neglect of duty on the part of the courts so gross as to make that duty imperative by statutory law, furnishes no evidence of the creation of a new right or the giving of a new remedy, but is a severe criticism upon the courts for an omission of duty already existing and now imposed by statute upon them, which is only confirmatory of the common law.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Barger v. . Barringer

2. ““There is no doubt in my mind that these uncouth screens or ‘obscurers,’ as they are named in the record, are a nuisance, and were erected without right, and for a malicious purpose. “What right has the defendant, in the light of the just and beneficent principles of equity, to shut out God’s free air and sunlight from the windows of his neighbor, not for any benefit or advantage to himself, or profit to his land, but simply to gratify his own wicked malice against his neighbor? None whatever. “The wanton infliction of damage can never be a right. It is a wrong, and a violation of right, and is not without remedy. “The right to breathe the air, and to enjoy the sunshine, is a natural one; and no man can pollute the atmosphere, or shut out the light of heaven, for no better reason than that the situation of his property is such that he is given the opportunity of so doing, and wishes to gratify his spite and malice towards his neighbor.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 11 Wash. App. 59 - Baillargeon v. A. G. Press

3. “If a man has no right to dig a hole upon his premises, not for any benefit to himself or his premises, but for the express purpose of destroying his neighbor's spring, why can he be permitted to shut out air and light from his neighbor's windows, maliciously and without profit or benefit to himself?”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Barger v. . Barringer