Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
136 U.S. 1 · 1890
Citation profile
74 federal appellate · 56 district · 138 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 462 later decisions (64 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2018 · most notably School District of Abington Township Pennsylvania v. Schempp J Murray III (1963), Massachusetts v. Mellon (1923)
74 federal appellate · 56 district · 138 state decisions — followed in 28 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 Hurtado v. People of the State of California · Calder et Wife, v. Bull et Wife. · Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward · Fosdick v. Schall · Davis v. Beason
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 462 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts well said, in Sohier v. Mass. Gen. Hospital, 3 Cush. 483 , 497: ‘It is deemed indispensable that there should be a power in the Legislature to authorize a sale of the estates of infants, idiots, insane persons, and persons not known, or not in being, who cannot act for themselves. The best interest of these persons, and justice to'other persons, often require that such sales should be made. It would be attended with incalculable mischiefs, injuries, and losses, if estates, in which persons are interested, who had not capacity to act for themselves, or who cannot be certainly ascertained, or are not in being, could under no circumstances, be sold, and perfect titles effected. But in such cases the Legislature, as parens patriae, can disentangle and unfetter the estates, by authorizing a sale, taking precaution that the substantial rights of all parties are protected and secured.’ “These remarks in reference to infants, insane persons, and persons not known, or not in being, apply to the beneficiaries of charities, who are often incapable of vindicating their rights, and justly look for protection to the sovereign authority, acting as parens patriae. They show that this beneficent function has not ceased to exist under the change of government from a monarchy to a republic, but that it now resides in the legislative department, ready to be called into exercise whenever required for the purposes of justice and right, and is as clearly”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Doubtless', Congress in legislating for the Territories would be subject to those fundamental limitations in favor of personal rights which are formulated in the Constitution and its amendments; but these limitations Would exist' rather by inference and the general spirit of the Constitution from which'-Congress derives all its powers, than by any express and direct application of its provisions.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage“The power to make acquisitions of territory by conquest, by treaty and by cession is an incident of national sovereignty.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.