Alger v. Anderson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““So, too, as relates to the jurisdiction oí the Circuit Court sitting as a court of chancery. It is undoubtedly true, as contended for in the argument of the complainant, in regard to equitable rights, that the power of the courts of chancery of the United States is, under the Constitution, to be regulated by the law of the English chancery; that is to say, the distinction between law and equity as recognized in the jurisprudence of England is to be observed in the courts of the United States, in administering the remedy for an existing right. The rule applies to the remedy, and not the right; and it does not follow that every right given by the English law, and which, at the time the Constitution was adopted, might have been enforced in the court of chancery, can also be enforced in a court of the United States. The right must be given by the law of the state, or of the United States. It is the form of remedy for which the Constitution provides; and, if a complainant has no right, the Circuit Court, sitting as a court of chancery, has nothing to remedy in any form of proceeding. “In the case before the court, the question is: Is the bequest which the complainants claim a valid one by the laws of Maryland? It is a question which, in its nature, necessarily depends upon the laws of the respective states. Some of the states sanction devises of this description, some do not, and undoubtedly it depends upon every state to determine for itself to whom, in wliat form, and by what i”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. James v. Gray

2. ““In all casos whore the rules prescribed by this court or by the circuit court do not apply, the practice of the circuit court shall be regulated by the present, practice of the high court of chancery in England, so far as the san»; may reasonably be applied consistently with ilie local circumstances and local conveniences of the district where the court is held, not as positive rules, but as furnishing just analogies to regulate the practice.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Deck v. Whitman