Gunn v. Barry’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

11 federal appellate · 7 district · 102 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 185 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[T]he legal remedies for the enforcement of a contract, which belong to it at the time and place where it is made, are a part of its obligation. A State may change them, provided the change involves no impairment of a substantial right. If the provision of the constitution, or the legislative act of a State, fall within the category last mentioned, they are to that extent utterly void.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Preston v. Anderson County Levee Improvement Dist. No. 2 · In Re Evans

2. ““The effect of the act in question, under the circumstances of this judgment, does not, indeed, merely impair, it annihilates, the remedy. There is none left. But the act reaches still further. It withdraws the land from the lien of the judgment, and thus destroys a vested right of property which the creditor had acquired in the pursuit of the remedy to which he was entitled by the law as it stood when the judgment was recovered. It is, in effect, taking one person’s property, and giving it to another, without compensation. This is contrary to reason and justice, and to the fundamental principles of the social compact.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Evans-Snider-Buel Co. v. McFadden

3. ““If the remedy is a part of the obligation of the contract, a clearer case of impairment can hardly occur than is presented in the record before us.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Preston v. Anderson County Levee Improvement Dist. No. 2