Gillioz v. Webb’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 3 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 7 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““On its face the constitutional point is without merit, for what is in question here is not the construction or validity of a statute, but of a contract voluntarily entered into with the Government. The fact that Congress authorized, indeed, required the inclusion in it of the .clause in question as a condition to letting the work, is significant only upon the question of the authority of the executive officer to write the clause in. Without such authorization, it may well be doubted that the contracting officer of the Government would have had authority to insert it. Cf. United States for Use and Benefit of Johnson v. Morley Construction Co., D. C., 17 F. Supp., 378, 388 . “Plainly and specifically authorized by, indeed, taken from the statute, there can be no doubt of the validity and binding force of this provision of the contract, or that, written in as a part of the public policy of the United States, to insure the payment of adequate wages on public work, its provisions should be liberally construed to effectuate its purpose. [Citing cases.] That purpose was to require the payment of not less than the prevailing rate of wages, and to establish the Secretary of Labor as the appraiser and determiner of that rate, whose finding is a condition precedent to complaints by laborers that the contractor had not paid, and conclusive upon both contractor and laborers as to what was the prevailing rate of wages the contract required to be paid, [citing cases.]” (p.586.)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Kelly v. Grimshaw

2. ““The function of the Secretary in thus ascertaining and declaring the prevailing rate of wages is not arbitrational, and in the nature of a judicial inquiry, and therefore requiring for its validity a formal controversy and hearing. It is that of an appraiser or valuer, a part of the process fixed by contract for determining a price, or an amount to be paid, (citing cases) . . . The only difference between the function of the Secretary under the Act as originally drawn and under the Act as amended, is that under the original Act the Secretary, as here, fixes the rate to be paid after a dispute has arisen and it then becomes part of the contract, while under the Act as amended the Secretary fixes and writes it into the contract in advance.” (Emphasis added.) Gillioz v. Webb, 99 F.2d 585 (5th Cir. 1938).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Ybanez v. Anchor Constructors, Inc.