State v. Buttz’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

9 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. ““ . . . What, then, does constitute incompatibility in offices? In 5 Bac. Abr., Title Offices, K, we find the rule laid down, upon the authority of Lord Coke, in these words: ‘ Offices are said to be incompatible and inconsistent, so as to be executed by the same person, when, from the multiplicity of business in them, they cannot be executed with care and ability; or when their being subordinate and interfering with each other it induces a presumption they cannot be executed with impartiality and honesty.’ And in Dillon on Municipal Corporations, in a note to Section 166, it is said that ‘incompatibility in offices exists where the nature and duties of the two offices are such as to render it improper, from considerations of public policy, for one incumbent to retain both. ’ Apply either one of these definitions to the case in hand and it is very manifest that the two offices in question are wholly incompatible. It certainly needs no argument to show that ‘the multiplicity of business’ in each of these offices is such as to render it not only impossible for the same person to perform the duties of both ‘with care and ability, ’ but impossible often, and very often too, to perform them at all. It is equally certain that the nature and duties of these two offices are such as that every consideration of public policy renders it improper for one incumbent to retain them both, and it is none the less certain that the duties of the two offices are such that the performance of the ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Perkins v. Manning