Bowditch v. Boston’s Empirical Analysis
101 U.S. 16 · 1879
Citation profile
39 federal appellate · 5 district · 65 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 174 later decisions (25 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2023 · most notably Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon (1922), Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council (1992)
39 federal appellate · 5 district · 65 state decisions — followed in 25 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 Merchants' Bank v. State Bank · National Bank v. United States · Respublica v. Sparhawk
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 174 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Decided cases may be found where it is held that, if there is a scintilla of evidence in support of a case, the judge is bound to leave it to the jury; but the modern decisions have established a more reasonable rule, to wit, that, before the evidence is left to the jury, there is or may be in every case a preliminary Question for the judge, not whether there is literally no evidence, but whether there is any upon which a jury can properly proceed to find a verdict for the party producing it, upon whom the burden of proof is imposed.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“'in cases of actual necessity, to prevent the spreading of a fire' or to forestall other grave threats to the lives and property of others”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““It is now a settled rule in the courts of the United States that whenever, in the trial of a civil case, it is clear that the state of the evidence is such as not to warrant a verdict for a party, and that if such verdict were rendered the other party would be entitled to a new trial, it is the right and duty of the judge to direct the jury to find according to the views of the court. Such is the constant practice, and it is a convenient one. It saves ' * * * expense. It gives scientific certainty to the law in its application to the facts and promotes the ends of justice. Merchants’ Bank v. State Bank, 10 Wall. 604 , 637 [ 19 L. Ed. 1008 ]; Improvement Company v. Munson, 14 Wall. 442 [ 20 L. Ed. 867 ]; Pleasants v. Fant, 22 Wall. 116 [ 22 L. Ed. 780 ].””
2 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.