Mansel v. Castles’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 52 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 56 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““It thus becomes obvious that one or more calls have been inadvertently omitted. Running, then, the first two calls, we-get two lines at right angles to each other. Recurring then to the beginning point and establishing the last line by reversing the call for its course and by running- the distance called for, we get another line at right angles to the first and approximately of the same length as the second. By supplying another line running from the end of the second to the north end of that so established, we complete a parallelogram which contains a fraction of an acre over 87 ¾ acres— the number called for in the description. It is true that the requisite number of acres may be obtained by running three or more lines between the end of the second line and the beginning of the last; but, if such had been the case, it is highly improbable that they would all have been omitted; while the omission by mistake of thé calls for one line in a set of field notes is a matter of not infrequent occurrence. While therefore the proposition that the calls of the description in question correct themselves and show the land intended to be described is not capable of mathematical demonstration, yet that it is true is reasonably certain. Upon such certainty we act in all the highest concerns of life, and it is sufficient for the purposes of the law.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Fortenberry v. Cruse