Use of quotations.

• Jurisdiction: United States

Section 77. Use of quotations.—It is a good, sound rule of thumb that quotations from opinions should be included only when they add something, and that, whenever possible, they should be short rather than long. But I cannot at all agree that they should invariably be omitted. (Compare the excerpt from Mr. Davis' paper quoted in Section 68, above.)

After all, a good many judges read briefs while sitting in easy chairs, and it is therefore going to advance your case if you quote enough pat matter to satisfy their curiosity without discommoding them and making them get up—particularly if their reading takes place where they do not have ready access to the law library.

Sometimes limitations of space will automatically curb the number and extent of your quotations. But, even when the length of a brief is unlimited, I think that the question "To quote or not to quote" is essentially a matter of judgment and proportion, not susceptible of being reduced to fixed rules (compare Sections 68 and 69, above, as to number of citations), and that all one can do is to formulate some standards. I venture the following:

(a) Quote only when the quotation adds something. A good standard to follow is to use a quotation whenever a court has said something as well or better than you are able to do on your own, or, pre-eminently, when some judge of acknowledged authority says what you are trying to say in language more striking or more dramatic than a journeyman lawyer writing a brief would feel free to use. A good illustration, for the first instance, is the quotation from Chief Justice Taney at p. 219, above; and, for the second, the Holmes quotation at p. 216.

(b) Always quote when the mere statement of the case's holding whets but does not satisfy the reader's curiosity.

(c) Never quote hornbook propositions (except in the very rare instance where a lower court has utterly disregarded hornbook law) .

(d) Never, never, never, quote sentences out of context. To do so is an unpardonable professional sin; besides, it leaves you wide open to being shown up by the opposition.

(e) In at least four instances, or so it seems to me, fairly extensive quotations are justified in any court:

First, when you are relying on temporarily unfamiliar decisions, and you need to recall the exact ratio decidendi to the court's mind. Thus, in Testa v. Katt,¹⁰⁷ the question was whether a State could refuse to enforce in its courts a cause of action arising under a Federal statute where that cause...