Stevens v. Stone’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

24 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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ . . Where no advantage can accrue to a plaintiff in a judgment by a second suit upon it, we fail to see that there is any propriety in allowing such suit. It is a narrow view of the subject, as we think, to say that the judgment is an evidence of debt, and that a debt will support a cause of action. The purpose of judicial actions is to afford remedies for the enforcement of rights, and, where the result of a suit prosecuted to success is to give the plaintiff no better remedy for the enforcement of his right than he had before, no reason other than a technical one can exist for permitting its prosecution. . . . ” “ . . . Therefore we are inclined to hold with the intimation of this court in former cases . . .that a judgment creditor cannot maintain an action upon his judgment without showing some advantage to be gained thereby. But, however that may be, we are clearly of the opinion that, where it is made to appear that a second judgment may be in any respect more favorable than the first, the action should be allowed. .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 448 F. Supp. 971 - United States v. Estes