Noonan v. State’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. “It is said that at the adoption of our constitution, there was included the common law, as a part of the law of the land, and that it would now be an unconstitutional act to alter or repeal by legislature, any principle, rule, or law, that was then a part of the common law. That, indeed, what was the common law at that juncture, was in fact incorporated into our constitution, and consequently not subject to any power short of that of the people themselves, in the exercise of their inherent political power, to alter or abolish their form of government. This view of the subject does not meet the approbation of this court, nor does it for the purpose intended, require its elaborate examination. The language of the constitution rebuts the presumption of such a meaning or intention. That the common law, like the common atmosphere around every living being, is gladly received by all framers of government, is certainly very true, but that it was adopted to remain perpetual, unaltered, and unalterable, and not to be tempered to our habits, wants and customs, we conceive was never designed by the wisdom of those who established our fundamental law.... The common law was the product of the experience of time, and the necessities of men living under a form of government. Many of its rules are now vexatious, and have become unnecessary, and unfitted to our occasions, and are properly repealed when they are found to obstruct the current of justice or the interests of the whole people.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 731 So. 2d 1098 - Clark v. Luvel Dairy Products, Inc.