Roberts v. Central Lead Co.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

13 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 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “It is immaterial that plaintiff might have interposed the same facts as a bar to defendant’s use of the document as a defense to plaintiff’s claim.... That privilege would not exclude plaintiff’s right to invoke the ancient jurisdiction of equity to eliminate by cancellation the paper as an impediment to the enjoyment of his rights, its invalidity not appearing on its face.... In this state the practice pursued in this case has been sanctioned from a date as early at least as the decision in Blair v. Railroad, 89 Mo. [383], 1 S.W. [350], and is unquestionable law. The enactment of a late statute touching the mode of pleading and practice where such a document is interposed as a defense (Rev.St.1899, § 654) does not abrogate the jurisdiction of equity to cancel such instruments, there being no intent exhibited by the enactment to accomplish such abrogation. The remedial jurisdiction of equity is not destroyed by the passage of a measure creating a statutory remedy at law in like circumstances, in the absence of an expression of legislative purpose to extinguish the ancient jurisdiction.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Adams v. Boring