Pierce Township v. Ernie’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In order to prevent the plaintiff from recovering judgment the respondent would invoke the rule that in an action to quiet title to real estate the plaintiff must rely upon the strength of his own title and not upon the weakness of that of his adversary. See Nord v. Nord, 68 N.D. 560 , 282 N.W. 507 , and cases cited. In this case the plaintiff has a title that is superior to any rights claimed by the respondent. His argument is best answered in the words of the United States Supreme Court in United States v. State of Oregon, 295 U.S. 1 , 55 S.Ct. 610, 619 , 79 L.Ed. 1267 : “A bill to quiet title may not be defeated by showing that the plaintiff’s interest, otherwise sufficient to support the bill, is subject to possibly superior rights in third persons not parties to the suit.” Pierce Tp. of Barnes County v. Ernie, 74 N.D. 16 , 19 N.W.2d 755, at 760 .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Smith v. Anderson

2. “The record contains an array of circumstances that militate against the good faith of the respondent within the meaning of that term as used in [N.D.C.C. § 47-19-41].... [T]he respondent lived but ten rods from the Pierce Pit. He knew that someone had opened it up and was hauling gravel from it. His admissions indicate that he had heard that Pierce Township had bought or was contemplating buying a pit from the Bloedel tract.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Swanson v. Swanson