Crowley v. Christensen’s Empirical Analysis
137 U.S. 86 · 1890
Citation profile
104 federal appellate · 48 district · 474 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 787 later decisions (59 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2025 · most notably Pierce v. Society of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary Same (1925), Nebbia v. People of State of New York (1934)
104 federal appellate · 48 district · 474 state decisions — followed in 48 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 Yick Wo v. Hopkins · In re Christensen
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 787 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“As it is a business attended with danger to the community, it may, as already said, be entirely prohibited, or be permitted under such conditions as will limit to the utmost its evils.”
35 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. In re Rapier · In re Swan““ ‘Even liberty itself, the greatest of all rights, is not unrestricted license to act according to one’s own will. It is only freedom from restraint under conditions essential to the equal enjoyment of the same right by others. It is then liberty regulated by law’ ” (Italics mine);”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“`essential to the safety, health, peace, good order and morals of the community,'”
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.