Smith v. Ayer’s Empirical Analysis
101 U.S. 320 · 1879
Citation profile
110 federal appellate · 50 district · 78 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 411 later decisions (16 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2025 · most notably Link v. Wabash Railroad (1962), Pioneer Investment Services Company v. Brunswick Associates Limited Partnership (1993)
110 federal appellate · 50 district · 78 state decisions — followed in 26 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 Thomasson v. Brown · Miller v. Williamson · Mather v. Goddard
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 411 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“notice of all facts, notice of which can be charged upon the attorney.”
36 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““The executor, though holding the title to the personal assets, is not absolute owner of them. They are not liable for his debts, nor can he dispose of them by will. He holds them in trust to pay the debts of the deceased, and then to discharge his legacies; and, as in all other cases of trust, he is personally responsible for any breach of duty. And property thus held, acquired from him by third parties with knowledge of his trust and his disregard of its obligations, can be followed and recovered. The law exacts the most perfect good faith from all parties dealing with a trustee respecting trust property. Whoever takes it for an object other than the general purposes of the trust, or such as may reasonably be supposed to be within its scope, must look to the authority of the trustee, or he will act at his peril.””
1 later decision 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.