Rosenthal v. Walker’s Empirical Analysis
111 U.S. 185 · 1884
Citation profile
144 federal appellate · 36 district · 88 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 499 later decisions (22 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2023 · most notably Hagner v. United States (1932), Pinney Dock & Transport Co. v. Penn Central Corp. (1988)
144 federal appellate · 36 district · 88 state decisions — followed in 24 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 Wood v. Carpenter · Bailey Assignee v. Glover et al. · Howard v. . Daly · Wiswall v. Campbell
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 499 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“if a letter properly directed is proved to have been either put into the post office or delivered to the postman, it is presumed, from the known course of business in the post office department, that it reached its destination at the regular time, and was received by the person to whom it was addressed.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“not a conclusive presumption of law, but a mere inference of fact, founded on the probability that the officers of the government will do their duty and the usual course of business; and, when it is opposed by evidence that the letters never were received, must be weighed with all the other circumstances of the case ... in determining the question whether the letters were actually received or not.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““They were enacted to prevent frauds; to prevent parties from assorting rights after the lapse of time had destroyed or impaired the evidence which should show that such rights never existed, or had been satisfied, transferred, or extinguished, if they ever did exist. To hold that by concealing a fraud, or by committing a fraud in a maimer that it concealed itself Until such time as the party committing the fraud could plead the statute of limitations to protect it, is to make the law which was designed to prevent fraud the means by which it is made successful and secure.””
3 later decisions 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.