Tebbe v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1895
Citation profile
64 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 64 later decisions — most recently March 2009 · most notably Rideout v. City of Los Angeles (1921), People Ex Rel. Skelton v. City of Los Angeles (1901)
64 state decisions — followed in 17 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 Bowers v. Smith · People Ex Rel. Nichols v. Board of County Canvassers · Russell v. McDowell · Rutledge v. Crawford · Knowles v. Yeates
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 64 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““ ‘Where a mode of preservation is enjoined by the statute, proof must be made of a substantial compliance with the requirements of that mode. But such requirements are construed as directory, merely, the object looked to being the preservation inviolate of the ballots. If this is established, it would be manifestly unjust to reject them merely because the precise mode of reaching it had not been followed. So, too, when a substantial compliance with the provisions of the statute has been shown, the burden of proof shifts to the contestee, of establishing that, notwithstanding this compliance, the ballots have in fact been tampered with or that they have been exposed under such circumstances that a violation of them might have taken place. But this proof is not made by a naked showing that it was possible for one to have molested them.' The law cannot guard against a mere possibility, and no judgment of any of its courts is ever rendered upon one. When all this has been said, it remains to be added that the question is one of fact, to be determined in the first instance by the jury or trial judge; and while the ballots should be admitted only after clear and satisfactory evidence of their integrity, yet, when they have been admitted, this Court will not disturb the ruling unless we, in turn, are as well satisfied that the evidence does not warrant it.’ ””
1 later decision quote this exact passage“No voter shall place any mark upon his ballot by which it may be afterwards identified as the one voted by him”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Farnham v. Boland
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.