Block v. United States’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 1 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 2 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The words ‘documents and papers,’ used in the several acts of Congress, cannot be held to mean every document or paper on file in the Department, but such only as were made by an officer or agent of the government in the course of the discharge of his official duty. Any other rule of interpretation would defeat the reason on which all public writings are admissible as evidence, i. e.. that they have been made by authorized and accredited agents, appointed for the purpose, and that the subject-matter of such writings is of a public nature. “Official documents, duly certified, need no further proof; but other documents, so certified, do not, by the mere fact of certification, become so authenticated as to entitle them to be received as evidence if they are objected to; but the originals must be produced and proved according to the course of the common law.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Cohn v. United States