United States v. Stone’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

39 federal appellate · 8 district · 39 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 215 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““A patent is the highest evidence of title, and is conclusive against the government and all claiming under junior patents or titles, until it is set aside or annulled by some judicial tribunal. * * * Patents are sometimes issued unadvisedly or by mistake, when the officer has no authority in law to grant them, or where another party has a higher equity and should have received the patent. In such cases courts of law will pronounce them void. The patent is but evidence of a grant, and the officer who issues it acts ministerially, and not judicially. If he issues a patent for land reserved from sale by law, such patent is void for want of authority. But one officer of the land office is not competent to cancel or annul the acts of his predecessor. That is a judicial act, and requires the judgment of a court.””

   11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Mullan v. United States · Maxwell Land-Grant Case

2. “It has been argued that the first patent appropriates the land, and extinguishes all prior claims of inferior dignity. But this view is not sustainable. The issuing of a patent is a ministerial act, which must be performed according to law. A patent is utterly void and inoperative which is issued for land that had been previously patented to another individual. The fee having been vested in the patentee by the first patent, the record could convey no right. It is true a patent possesses the highest verity. It cannot be contradicted or explained by parol; but if it has been fraudulently obtained, or issued against law, it is void. It would be a most dangerous principle to hold, that a patent should carry the legal title, though obtained fraudulently, or against law. Fraud vitiates all transactions. It makes void a judgment, which is a much more solemn act than the issuing of a patent. The patent of the defendants having been for land reserved from such appropriation, is void; and also the survey of Coontz, so far as either conflicts with the plaintiff's title and this question, this court can decide."”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 248 So. 3d 506 - Dupont v. State

3. “The English practice of suing out a scire facias by the first patentee may have grown out of the rights of the prerogative, and it ceases to be applicable with us. In addition to the remedy by scire facias, etc., there is another by bill in the equity side of the Court of Chancery. Such a bill was sus tained in the case of The Attorney General v. Vernon, 1 Vernon, 277, to set aside letters patent obtained by fraud, and they were set aside by a decree.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. United States v. American Bell Telephone Co.