Johnson v. Towsley’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

76 federal appellate · 22 district · 155 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 463 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ That the action of the land-office, in issuing a patent for any public land subject to sale, by pre-emption or otherwise, is conclusive of the legal title, must be admitted on the principle above stated, and in all courts and in all forms of judicial proceedings where this title must control, either by reason of the limited powers of the court or the essential character of the proceeding, no inquiry can be permitted into the circumstances under which it was obtained. On the other hand, there has always existed in the courts of equity the power, in certain classes of cases, to inquire into and correct mistakes, injustice, and wrong in both judicial and executive action, however solemn the form which the result of that action may assume when it invades private rights; and, by virtue of this power, the final judgment of courts of law have been annulled or modified, and patents and other important instruments issuing from the crown, or other executive branch of the government, have been corrected or declared void, or other relief granted.””

   10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Rector v. Gibbon · St. Louis Smelting & Refining Co. v. Green

2. ““ Undoubtedly there has been in all of them some special ground for the exercise of the equitable jurisdiction ; for this Court does not, and never has, asserted that all the matters passed upon by the land office are open to review in the Courts. On the contrary, it is fully conceded, that, when those officers decide controverted questions of fact, in the absence of fraud or impositions or mistake, their decision on those questions is final, except as they may be reversed on appeal in that department. But we are not prepared to concede, that when, in the application of the facts as found by them, they, by misconstruction of the law, take from a party that to which he has acquired a legal right under the sanction of those laws, the Courts are without power to give any relief. ( 13 Wall. 86 .)”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Morgan v. Daniels · Mason v. Mason

3. ““But independently of this conclusion there is a general answer to the alleged erroneous rulings of the officers of the Land Department as grounds for the interference of the court. Those rulings were upon mere matters of fact, or upon mixed questions of law and fact, which were properly cognizable and determinable by the officers of that department. The laws of the United States prescribe with particularity the manner in which portions of the public domain may be acquired by settlers. They require .personal settlement upon the lands desired and their inhabitation and improvement, and a declaration of the settler’s acts and purposes to be made in the proper office of the district, within a limited time after the public surveys have been extended over the lands. By them a land department has been created to supervise all the various steps required for the acquisition of the title of the government. Its officers are required to receivq, consider, and pass upon the proofs furnished as to the alleged settlements upon the lands, and their improvement, when pre-emption rights are claimed, and, in case of conflicting claims to the same tract, to hear the contesting parties. The proofs offered in compliance with the law are to be presented, in the first instance, to the officers of the district where the land is situated, and from their decision, an appeal lies to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, and from, him to the Secretary of the Interior. 'For mere errors of judgment”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. United States v. Bush