Hobbs v. McLean’s Empirical Analysis
117 U.S. 567 · 1886
Citation profile
222 federal appellate · 49 district · 152 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 654 later decisions (48 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2024 · most notably Alyeska Pipeline Service Company v. Wilderness Society (1975), United States v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co. (1949)
222 federal appellate · 49 district · 152 state decisions — followed in 30 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 Cromwell v. County of Sac · Trustees v. Greenough · Bailey Assignee v. Glover et al. · Central Railroad Banking Co of Georgia v. Pettus
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 654 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““They 'were passed in order that the government might not be harassed by-multiplying the number of persons with whom it had to deal, and might always know with whom it was dealing until the contract was completed and a settlement made.””
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Neither this contract nor any interest therein shall be transferred by the party to whom such contract is given to any other party, and any such transfer may be cause for annulment of the contract transferred, so far as the Postal Service is concerned____”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“• “When many persons have a common interest in a trust property or fund, and one of them, for, the benefit of all and at his own cost and expense, brings a suit for its preservation or administration, the court of equity in which the- suit is brought will order that the- plaintiff be reimbursed his outlay from the property of the trust,” etc.”
5 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.