Campbell v. Holt’s Empirical Analysis
115 U.S. 620 · 1885
Citation profile
166 federal appellate · 74 district · 386 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 837 later decisions (44 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Guaranty Trust Co. v. York (1945), Chase Securities Corp. v. Donaldson (1945)
166 federal appellate · 74 district · 386 state decisions — followed in 44 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 Dickerson v. Colgrove · William M'Elmoyle for the Use of Isaac Bailey v. John J Cohen · Leffingwell v. Warren · Croxall v. Shererd
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 837 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It may ... very well be held that in an action to recover real or personal property, where the question is as to the removal. of. the bar of the statute of limitations by a legislative act passed after the bar has become perfect, that such act deprives the party of his property without due process of law. The reason is that, by the law in existence before the repealing act, the property had become the defendant’s. Both the legal title and the real ownership had become vested in him, and to give the act the effect of transferring this title to plaintiff'would be to deprive him of his property without due process of law.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“have always been held to be within the legislative power until the bar is complete”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““It is settled ‘that the statute of limitations does not destroy the debt’; it only takes away the remedy. The debtor may either take advantage of the statute of limitations, if the,debt be older than the time limited for bringing the action; or he may waive this advantage, and, in honesty,,he ought not to defend himself by such a plea. And the slightest word of acknowledgment will take it out of the statute. Here tlie debtor himself has not objected; he has submitted to the commission, and" been examined under it. Therefore the objection does not now lie in the mouth of a third person.””
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. In re Burton · In re Salmon
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.