Gross v. United States Mortgage Co.’s Empirical Analysis
108 U.S. 477 · 1883
Citation profile
17 federal appellate · 3 district · 19 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 96 later decisions (23 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 1964 · most notably Whitney v. People of State of California (1927), Spies v. Illinois (1887)
17 federal appellate · 3 district · 19 state decisions — followed in 11 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 Paul v. Virginia · Bank of Augusta v. Earle · Murdock v. City of Memphis · Edwards v. Kearzey · Ex Parte Charles Sibbald v. The United States
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 96 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““It is not easy to perceive how a law which gives validity to a void contract can be said to impair the obligation of that contract.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““The effect of the usury statute of Texas was to enable the party sued to resist the recovery against him of the interest which he had contracted to pay, and it was in its nature a penal statute, inflicting upon the lender a loss and forfeiture to that extent. Such has been the general, if not the uniform, construction placed upon such statutes. And it has been quite as generally de» cided that the repeal of such laws without a saving clause operated retrospectively, so as to cut cf. the defense for the future even upon actions upon con tracts previously made. And such laws, operating with that effect, have been upheld as against all objections on the ground that they deprived parties of vested rights, or impaired the obligation of contracts. * * * And these decisions rest upon solid ground. Independent of the nature of the forfeiture as a penalty, which is taken away by a repeal of the act, the more general and deeper principle on which they are to be supported is that the right of a defendant to avoid his contract is given to him by statute, for purposes of its own; and not because it affects the merits of his obligation; and that whatever the statute gives, under such circumstances, as long as it remains in fieri, and not realized by having passed unto a complete transaction, may, by a subsequent statute, be taken away. It is a privilege that belongs to the remedy, and forms no element in the rights that inhere in the contract. The benefit which he has received as the cons”
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.