Legal argument

“ It is necessary, therefore, for us to understand correctly, and to understand with precision and accuracy, exactly what the law means by them, because they have a legal meaning; they have a meaning that is peculiar to the law ”

“ It is in this tendency that we find the key to much that is otherwise unaccountably harsh, technical, or absurd in early judicial remedies and procedure. Whenever any recognized legal right came to be regarded as unconscionable or otherwise objectionable, rules adapted to hamper or imperil the complainant in the pursuit of his remedy were sure to spring up. ”

“ The act itself, with all the circumstances of the inhabitants before and at the time of its passage, have formed the subject of legal judgments and professional opinions upon which mighty interests have grown up and now repose. ”

“ Indeed the Court has held that Congress may for reasons adequate to itself confer bounties upon persons and, by consenting to suit, convert their moral claim into a legal one enforceable by litigation in an undoubted constitutional court. ”

“ Under matured systems of jurisprudence a great variety of agreements are denied legal recognition, on the ground that their performance would involve a violation of law, or would be incompatible with good morals or public policy. ”

“ In Justice the young advocate who appears for the defence is not so much pleading for the client under the law, as arraigning the present legal system, setting up a new conception of law based upon common sense, human insight, and a morality finer than legalism. ”

“ Thus the idea of legal constraint is still the generating idea of the notion of justice, though undergoing several transformations before that notion, as it exists in an advanced state of society, becomes complete. ”

“ When, therefore, in an ordinary trial in an action at law we speak of the common law we refer to the law of the state as it has been adopted by statute or recognized by the courts as the foundation of legal rights. It is in regard to decisions made by the state courts in reference to this law, and defining what is the law of the state as modified by the opinions of its own courts, by the statutes of the state, and the customs and habits of the people, that the trouble arises. ”

“ Thus having established, as I hope, that the plain and natural meaning of the words “has reasonable cause” imports the existence of a fact or state of facts and not the mere belief by the person challenged that the fact or state of facts existed, I proceed to show that this meaning of the words has been accepted in innumerable legal decisions for many generations, that “reasonable cause” for a belief when the subject of legal dispute has been always treated as an objective fact to be proved by one or other party and to be determined by the appropriate tribunal. ”

“ Conceding, or better realizing, this inherently fluctuating character or quality of public policy, we see that the enactment of statutes to declare or define it must of necessity be a dangerous business, because such statutes, however accurately they reflect the public policy of the moment of their enactment, must almost immediately begin to be wrong. The Common Law, reposing, according to the legal fiction, in the bosom of the court, is flexible, and can change or be changed, as we have seen, with the change of condition ”

“ Among these he mentions a law which punishes a citizen for an innocent action; a law that destroys or impairs the lawful private contracts of citizens; a law that makes a man a judge in his own cause; and a law that takes the property from A. and gives it to B. 'It is against all reason and right,' says the learned justice, 'for a people to intrust a legislature with such powers ”

“ The primary rights and duties with which jurisprudence busies itself again are nothing but prophecies. One of the many evil effects of the confusion between legal and moral ideas, about which I shall have something to say in a moment, is that theory is apt to get the cart before the horse, and consider the right or the duty as something existing apart from and independent of the consequences of its breach, to which certain sanctions are added afterward. ”

“ We have hitherto taken it for granted that legal principles are necessarily inflexible—that they are essentially peremptory rules excluding judicial discretion so far as they extend—that they must of necessity be followed blindly by courts of justice even against their better judgment. ”

“ The degree of energy with which the feeling of legal right reacts against an infringement of legal right is, in my eyes, a sure measure of the importance which individuals, a class or people, really attach, both to the law in general and to a special branch of it, for themselves and their special aim in life. ”

“ One of the most theory-ridden of legal concepts is a 'cause of action.' This Court has recognized its 'shifting meanings' and the danger of determining rights based upon definitions of 'a cause of action' unrelated to the function which the concept serves in a particular situation. ”

“ If this is so, it may be asked how it could be forbidden by 5 to have the purpose and intent of achieving only what is a perfectly legal result under that section and why we need remand for further proceedings with respect to purpose alone. The answer is plain, and we need not labor it. ”

“ That the dispute turns upon questions of fact does not withdraw it, as the respondent seems to contend, from judicial cognizance. The legal consequences flow from the facts and it is the province of the courts to ascertain and find the facts in order to determine the legal consequences. ”

“ Nevertheless the gigantic bulk and bewildering difficulties of our own labyrinthine system are far beyond anything that is called for by the necessities of the case. Partly through the methods of its historical development, and partly through the influence of 26that love of subtilty which has always been the besetting sin of the legal mind, our law is filled with needless distinctions, which add enormously to its bulk and nothing to its value, while they render great part of it unintelligible to any but the expert. ”

“ Personal statutes are of universal validity; real statutes have no extra-territorial authority. The determination of the class under which a particular law ought to fall is one of great difficulty, and one in which there is often a conflict of legal opinion. ”

“ The legal reason which limits a power to the life of the person giving it, exists no longer, and the rule ceases with the reason on which it is founded. The intention of the instrument may be effected without violating any legal principle. ”

“ On condition that you protect my rights, I will protect your rights. How, then, does some party obtain the right to claim the protection of the other? Evidently, by actually protecting the rights of the other.
But if this is so, no party will ever obtain a strictly legal claim to the protection of the other. ”

“ Further, a great part of what I have written is sufficiently free from the technicalities and details of the concrete legal system to serve the purposes of those laymen who, with no desire to adventure themselves among the repellent mysteries of the law, are yet interested in those more general portions of legal theory which touch the problems of ethical and political science. ”

“ But this depends upon facts which are not before us and besides involves a question within the competency of the court to decide concerning which therefore there is no basis for granting the writ of prohibition or sanctioning a resort to any other extraordinary legal remedy. ”

“ The model injunction acts of a few of our more advanced States "vest the power in any citizen, whether he or she is personally damaged by such establishment, to institute legal proceedings against all concerned ”

“ In his chapter on "Legal Rights and Duties" the distinguished author takes the position that a right always has a duty as its correlative; [37] and he seems to define the former relation substantially according to the more limited meaning of "claim." Legal privileges, powers, and immunities are prima facie ignored, and the impression conveyed that all legal relations can be comprehended under the conceptions, "right" and "duty." But, with the greatest hesitation and deference, the suggestion may be ventured that a number of his examples seem to show the inadequacy of such mode of treatment. ”

“ We are aware that the propriety of this doctrine has been questioned by some writers; but if repeated judicial decisions for more than a century are to be received as the best exposition of what the law is, the question will not admit of argument. ”

“ We are enquiring what the law is, not what it ought to be. Reason may be applied to shew the impropriety or expedience of a law, but we must have either statute or precedent to prove the existence of it. At the same time, I do not mean to admit that the late resolution of the house of commons is defensible on general principles of reason, any more than in law. ”

“ It is an old principle of the Common Law, recognized by all our courts, as announced by Lord Coke, that, “where the law granteth anything to any one, that also is granted without which the thing itself cannot be.” ”

“ And even with help—it is a plague and a mystery till the true meaning has been settled—settled!—by adjudication: that is, by others in authority, the priesthood and the patriarchs, who, under the name of judges, are paid for all the thinking, as lawyers are paid for all the talking to no purpose, permitted at law: for, be it known to all whom it may concern, that is, to all the non-lawyers of our land, that no private interpretation of law is of any authority at law: nor is the right of private judgment recognized or allowed or tolerated or endured in courts of justice! ”

“ In construing a statute, penal as well as others, we must look to the object in view, and never adopt an interpretation that will defeat its own purpose, if it will admit of any other reasonable construction. ”

“ When a statute alters the common law the meaning shall not be strained beyond the meaning of the words, except in cases of public utility, as when the end in view appears to be more comprehensive than the enacting words. ”

“ The first is absolute but, in the nature of things, the second cannot be. Conduct remains subject to regulation for the protection of society.' The Court today allows belief, not conduct, to be regulated. ”

“ When one of the superior courts of law has, after solemn argument and full consideration, laid down a certain principle as one fit to be applied to the case in hand, there is a reasonable presumption that this decision is correct, and that the principle is a just one fit to be applied to all similar cases in the future, that is to say, fit to receive permanent recognition as a new rule of law. ”

“ The authority of an opinion as a precedent on any point is always proportioned to the necessity of determining that point in order to support the judgment which was rendered. Some judges write treatises instead of decisions or in addition to decisions. Whatever goes beyond that which is required to show that the judgment is the legal conclusion from the ascertained facts is styled in law language obiter dictum. ”

“ The law is its own measure of right and wrong, of what it permits, or forbids, and the judgment of the courts cannot be set up against it in a supposed accommodation of its policy with the good intention of parties, and, it may be, of some good results.' Standard Sanitary Mfg. ”

“ In the last analysis it is for us to determine what is arbitrary or oppressive upon consideration of the natural and inherent principles of practical justice which lie at the base of our traditional jurisprudence and inspirit our Constitution. ”

“ Our lawyers to-day are so far from believing that the balance of Justice should, in private law as well as in criminal law, weigh the injustice which has been done, and not only the pecuniary interest, that, in daring to speak about it, I must expect to hear it objected that in this precisely lies the difference between criminal law and the law pertaining to the rights of persons. ”

“ Also we must realize that the authority that makes the law is itself superior to it, and that if it consents to apply to itself the rules that it applies to others the consent is free and may be withheld. ”

“ The law lays down the only standard by which the acts of the citizen are to be governed. What the law permits is right, else it would prohibit it. What the law prohibits is wrong, because it punishes it. ”

“ For the present we declare, as we have a perfect right to do, that the deduced conception, X, the reality whereof has been proven in our deduction, is to be called in this our investigation the conception of Law or Rights, holding ourselves responsible to prove by it whatever questions common sense may raise concerning Law. ”

“ It is safe to presume that the apparently unreasonable position of the law was assumed with a good object in view, and it is probable that the object was the protection of the court from the swarm of so-called experts which might be hatched by a laxity in the wording of the law. ”

“ A law, instead of having more meanings than one, may have none at all, the different parts of it being repugnant, so as to destroy each other’s significance. In this case it is the duty of the judicature to ascertain in some other way the true sententia legis, and to correct the letter of the law accordingly. ”

“ He is not concerned simply with recovering the object—he may, perhaps, as frequently happens, to prove the real motive in suing, have devoted it from the first to a charitable institution—but with forcing a recognition of his rights. ”

“ Remedies of a statutory character, where the right to be enforced was unknown at the common law, are to be followed with strictness, both as to the methods to be pursued and the cases to which they are to be applied. ”