Patton v. Chattanooga’s Empirical Analysis
1901
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 35 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 39 later decisions — most recently May 2012 · most notably Owen of Georgia, Inc. v. Shelby County (1981), Jared v. Fitzgerald (1946)
3 federal appellate · 35 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.
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 39 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““ (1) The bill not alleging that complainants will suffer any injury not common to the body of the citizens, complainants have no such interest in the subject-matter as gives them a status to make any of the questions attempted to be made by the bill. “ (2) The complainants cannot, in any event, make the question that the city has no power to grant an exclusive franchise. “Status of Complainants. The bill is filed by citizens and taxpayers as such. It does not show that they can possibly suffer any injury which is not common to the body of the citizens, and complainants show no special injury or interest, and therefore cannot be heard to question the validity of the ordinance; and there is consequently no judicial question. ’ ’”
1 later decision quote this exact passage““ ‘ However commendable it may be in an individual to carry on a suit for the whole community, in the result of which he has no interest over any other member of that community, to urge the perpetration of an injunction for the good of the city, such is not a fit case for equitable interposition.’ Jones v. Mayor, etc., Little Rock, 25 Ark. [301], 305.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage““Thus examined, the Tennessee cases show that the court had jurisdiction to pass on questions, admittedly of a judicial nature only when such jurisdiction is invoked ‘by those having a special or peculiar interest in the question, and there are none to the contrary.” (Emphasis supplied)”
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.