Hoffman v. Davis’s Empirical Analysis
1937
Citation profile
50 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 50 later decisions — most recently August 2017 · most notably Bland Independent School District v. Blue (2000), Williams v. Lara (2001)
50 state decisions
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 City of Austin v. McCall · Terrell v. Middleton · Terrell v. Middleton · Terrell v. Middleton · Looscan v. County of Harris
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 50 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[The plaintiffs] have no private interest in the subject-matter. When a taxpayer brings an action to restrain the illegal expenditure by the commissioners’ court of tax money he sues for himself, and it is held that his interest in the subject-matter is sufficient to support the action; but when the money has already been spent, an action for its recovery is for the county. The cause of action belongs to it alone. Our courts do not recognize the right of one to bring a lawsuit for another merely because he might derive some indirect benefit therefrom.”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.