Astor v. Merritt’s Empirical Analysis
111 U.S. 202 · 1884
Citation profile
16 federal appellate · 14 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 54 later decisions (10 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2025 · most notably Smith v. United States (1993), Voisine v. United States (2016)
16 federal appellate · 14 state decisions — followed in 10 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.
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 54 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[w]earing apparel in actual use ... of persons arriving in the United States.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“while it comports with the ordinary habits of passengers and travellers, will not open the door for fraud.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“personal effects of [the traveller], and not merchandise, and not for sale,”
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.