Horton v. Williams’s Empirical Analysis
1894
Citation profile
23 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 23 later decisions — most recently May 1953
23 state decisions — followed in 10 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Haynes v. Thomas · Grand Rapids Booming Co. v. Jarvis · In re Mayor · Paul v. City of Detroit · Clements v. Village of West Troy
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 23 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“There is another and fatal objection to the proceedings taken by the common council. It shows upon its face that the inducement for the council’s action was the division of the property attempted to be acquired by the vacation between the defendant and the city. The council was set in motion by the defendant, whose apparent motive was to procure a valuable frontage for his own use, and in order to secure it he proposed to the council to divide the land acquired. It was held in Shue v. Commissioners, 41 Mich. 638 , ( 2 N. W. 808 ), that every road must be opened or closed upon its own merits. ‘It is easy to see,’ says the court, ‘how great mischief and wrong might be done by uniting several different schemes. Combinations of separate interests are not allowed.’ The affidavits of the five aldermen who voted for the resolution of vacation appear in this record; and, while they depose that the alley was unsightly, they also say that the city would thereby acquire a valuable property interest in the way of a city hall and engine house, without expense to the city. The same motive might suggest the vacation of any street. The advantage which the public derives from the discontinuance of a way must arise from the vacation itself, rather than from the use to which, the property is put, or from the fact that the city, through a deal with the individual specially interested, is to have an interest in the property acquired by such vacation. A city cannot barter away streets and alleys; ”
1 later decision quote this exact passage““Complainants have an interest in the land embraced in this alley, and the taking thereof can only be effected by a proper regard for the constitutional provision respecting the taking of private property.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Burton v. Freund
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.