Stone v. Mississippi’s Empirical Analysis
101 U.S. 814 · 1879
Citation profile
52 federal appellate · 30 district · 233 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 484 later decisions (54 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2021 · most notably Pierce v. Society of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary Same (1925), Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon (1922)
52 federal appellate · 30 district · 233 state decisions — followed in 38 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 Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward · Boyd v. Alabama · Metropolitan Board of Excise v. . Barrie · James Phalen v. The Commonwealth of Virginia
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 484 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]he legislature cannot bargain away the police power of a State, [although] [i]rrevocable grants of property and franchises may be made if they do not impair the supreme authority to make laws for the right government of the State.”
20 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“It is now toó late to contend that any contract which a State' actually • enters into, when granting'a charter to a private corporation,' is not within the protection of the clause in the Constitution of the United States that prohibits States from passing laws impairing the obligation of contracts. The doctrines of Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 518 , announced by this court more than sixty years ago,, have become so imbedded in the jurisprudence of the United States as to make them to all intents and purposes a part of the Constitution itself.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““It is to bo kept in mind tliat it is not tlie charter which is protected, hut only any contract the charter may contain. If there is no contract there is nothing in the grant on which the constitution can act. Consequently the first inquiry in this class of cases is whether the contract has been in fact entered'into, and, if so, what its obligations are.””
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.