Barney v. Baltimore City’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

128 federal appellate · 50 district · 26 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 386 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The learning on the subject of parties to suits in chancery is copious, and within a limited extent the principles which govern their introduction are flexible. There is a class of persons having such relations to the matter in controversy, merely formal or otherwise, that, while they may be called proper parties, the court will take no account of the omission to make them parties. There is another class of persons whose relations to the suit are such that, if their interest and their absence are formally brought to the attention of the court, it will .require them to be made parties, if within its jurisdiction, before deciding the case. But, if this cannot be done, it will proceed to administer such relief as may be in its power between the parties before it. And there is a third class, whose interests in the subject-matter of the suit and in the relief sought are so bound up with that of the other parties that their legal presence as parties to the proceeding is an absolute necessity, without which the court cannot proceed. In such cases the court refuses to entertain the suit when these parties cannot be subjected to its jurisdiction. This class cannot be better described than in the language of this court in Shields v. Barrow, 17 How. 130 , 15 L. Ed. 158 , in which a very able and satisfactory discussion of the whole subject is had. They are there said to be ‘persons who not only have an interest in the controversy, but an interest of such a nature that a final decree ca”

   15 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Kendig v. Dean · Chadbourn v. Coe

2. ““ ‘Persons who not only have an interest in the controversy, but an interest of such a nature that a final decree cannot be made without either affecting that interest, or leaving the controversy in such a condition tiiat its final termination may be wholly inconsistent with equity and good conscience.’ ””

   6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Niles-Bement-Pond Co. v. Iron Moulders Union Local No. 68 · Ban v. Columbia Southern Ry. Co.

3. ““If a decree Is made which is intended to bind them, it is manifestly unjust to do this when they are not parties to the suit,and have no opportunity to be heard. But, as the decree cannot bind them, for that very reason the court cannot afford the relief asked to the other parties. If, for instance, the 'Tee should partition the lands, * * * the particular pieces of land allotted to the parties before the court would still -be undivided as to those parties whose interest in each piece would remain as before the partition. And they could at any time apply to the proper court, and ask a repartition of the whole tract, unaffected by any decree in this case, because they cannot be bound by a decree to which they are not parties.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Consolidated Water Co. v. Babcock · West v. East Coast Cedar Co.