United States v. Beebe’s Empirical Analysis
127 U.S. 338 · 1888
Citation profile
169 federal appellate · 69 district · 60 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 447 later decisions (43 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2019 · most notably Ex Parte: Edward T Young (1908), Occidental Life Insurance Company of California v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (1977)
169 federal appellate · 69 district · 60 state decisions — followed in 21 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 In re Ayers · United States v. San Jacinto Tin Co. · United States v. Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway Co. · State ex rel. Markley v. Baldwin
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 447 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"We are of the opinion that when the government is a mere formal complainant in a suit, not for the purpose of asserting any public right or protecting any public interest, title or property, but merely to form a conduit through whom one private person can conduct litigation against another private person, a court of equity will not be restrained from administering the equities existing between the real parties by an exemption of the government designed for the protection of the rights of the United States alone. The mere use of its name in a suit for the benefit of a private suitor cannot extend its immunity as a sovereign government to said private suitor, whereby he can avoid and escape the scrutiny of a court of equity into the matters pleaded against him by the other party; nor stop the court from examining into and deciding the case according to the principles governing courts of equity in like cases between private litigants." [ 127 U.S. 338 , 8 S.Ct. 1088 ]”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““l'he principle that the United States are not bound by any statute of limitations, nor barred by any laches of their officers, however gross, in a suit brought by them as a sovereign government to enforce a public right, or to assert a public interest, is established past all controversy or doubt. United States v. Nashville, etc., Railway Company, 118 U. S. 120 , 125 [ 6 Sup. Ct. 1006 , 30 L. Ed. 81 ], and cases there cited.””
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““If two patents to tlie same land bad been issued to two different Individuals. it may properly be left to Hie individuals to settle by personal .litigation Hie question of right, in which they alone are interested.””
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.