Wilms v. Jess’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 1 district · 28 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 35 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““But, it is contended, appellant and his codefendant were exonerated from protecting the surface, because the lease here stipulates that ‘no pillars shall be withdrawn within six hundred feet of the shaft,’ upon the principle that, ‘having expressed some the parties have expressed all the conditions by which they intend to be bound under that instrument.’ “By looking to the lease, we think it quite dear this stipulation has relation to the mine only, and no reference whatever to the superincumbent soil. The whole clause relates to the manner of working the mine and the condition in which it shall be left It requires that the mining shall be done in a workmanlike manner, that no pillars shall be withdrawn within six hundred feet of the shaft, and that the entries giving access to the coal not mined at the termination of the lease, shall be turned over, etc., in good condition, etc. — all for the obvious purpose of preserving the shaft and access to coal not mined. “No attempt is made to regulate the rights and obligations of the parties, in respect of the superincumbent soil, further than to confer the right of way thereover and the surface use to the extent jjecessary to an efficient and economical working of the mine, leaving them to be governed in other respects in reference thereto by the common law.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Marquette Cement Mining Co. v. Oglesby Coal Co.

2. ““The act of removing all support from the superincumbent soil is, prima facie, the cause of its subsequently subsiding; but if the subsiding is, in fact, caused by the weight of buildings erected subsequent to the execution of the lease of the mine, this is in the nature of contributive negligence, and may be proved in defence. The authorities do not require that plaintiff’s proof shall exclude that hypothesis in the first instance.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Standard Oil Co. v. Watts