Pratt v. Pratt’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

27 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 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The defendant, having purchased the land of the person who had the legal title, does undoubtedly hold adversely to everybody else. He admits no better right in anyone. He is no man’s tenant. The right by which he' holds possession is superior to the right of all others. He asserts this, and he acts on it. His possession is, in this sense, adverse to the whole world. But it is not inconsistent with all this that there exists a lien on the land—a lien which does not interfere with his possession, which cannot disturb it, but which may ripen into a title superior to that under which he holds, but which is yet in privity with it. In the just sense of the term his possession is not adverse to this lien. There can be no adversary rights in regard to the possession under the lien, and under the defendant’s purchase from the judgment debtor, until the lien is converted into a title conferring the right of possession. The defendant’s possession after this is adverse to the title of plaintiff; and then, with the right of entry in plaintiff, the bar of the statute begins to run.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Dobbins v. Economic Gas Co.