Clapp v. Otoe County’s Empirical Analysis
104 F. 473 · 1900
Citation profile
14 federal appellate · 1 district · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 24 later decisions (3 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2013
14 federal appellate · 1 district · 3 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 Burgess v. Seligman · Riggs v. Johnson County · Town of Coloma v. Eaves · State v. Carroll · Evansville v. Dennett
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 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Now, there can be no obligation without an obligor; no contract without a contractor. A precinct cannot contract and cannot be an obligor, because it is not a corporate entity. The favorable vote of its electors authorizes the precinct to do nothing. It can neither act nor contract, sue nor be sued. But, when its electors vote favorably upon a proposition to issue bonds, the statutes of Nebraska authorize the board of county commissioners of the county in which the precinct is situated to issue these bonds, to levy the necessary taxes upon the property in the precinct to raise money to pay them, and to apply this money to that purpose. Who, then, becomes the obligor in these bonds? Who makes the contracts? Who agrees to pay-them? There can be but one answer to these questions,' and that is that the county which issues them, and which, under the statute, has the power to levy the taxes to raise the money to discharge them, agrees to pay them. The conclusion is irresistible that bonds issued by the county commissioners of a county in Nebraska, upon the favorable vote of the electors of a precinct therein, are the obligations of the county. In legal effect, they are the contracts of the county that it will pay the bonds, and the only difference between such bonds and the ordinary bonds of a county is not in the obligation of the county to pay them, but in the method by which the county may raise the money to discharge its own obligations. In the former ease, it may levy the tax”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“• “Decisions of the state courts which so construe their statutes as to destroy or impair rights previously acquired through contracts between citizens of different states under statutes and Constitutions which warranted and sustained them when they were vested are not obligatory upon the courts of the United States.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.