Gibbons v. Mahon’s Empirical Analysis
136 U.S. 549 · 1890
Citation profile
69 federal appellate · 25 district · 152 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 316 later decisions (24 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2025 · most notably Eisner v. Macomber (1920), Towne v. Eisner (1918)
69 federal appellate · 25 district · 152 state decisions — followed in 37 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 Van Allen v. The Assessors · The Delaware Railroad Tax Minot v. The Philadelphia Wilington and Baltimre Railroad Company · Tennessee v. Whitworth · New York Co v. Nickals
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 316 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““A stock dividend really takes nothing from the property of the corporation, and adds nothing to the interests of the shareholders. Its property is not diminished, and their interests are not increased. . . . The proportional interest of each shareholder remains the same. The only change is in the evidence which represents that interest, the new shares and the original shares together representing the same proportional interest that the original shares represented before the issue of the new ones.” Gibbons v. Mahon, 136 U.S. 549 , 559, 560, 10 S.Ct. 1057 , 34 L.Ed. 525 . In short, the corporation is no poorer and the stockholder is no richer than they were before. . What has happened is that the plaintiff’s older certificates have been split up in effect and have diminished in value to the extent of the value of the new. [Id. at 426-27, 38 S.Ct. at 159 .]”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“"A simple rule is to regard cash dividends, however large, as income, and stock dividends, however made, as capital."”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage““The distinction between the title of a corporation, and the interest of its members or stockholders in the property of the .corporation is familiar and well settled. The ownership of that property is in the corporation, and not in the holders of shares of its stock. The interest of each stockholder consists in the right to a proportionate part of the profits whenever dividends are declared by the corporation, during its existence under its charter, and to a like proportion of the property remaining, upon the termination or dissolution of the corporation, after payment of its debts.””
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.