Worthington v. Robbins’s Empirical Analysis
139 U.S. 337 · 1891
Citation profile
12 federal appellate · 3 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 155 later decisions (18 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2025 · most notably United States v. Bernard Citroen (1912), Tide Water Oil Co. v. United States (1898)
12 federal appellate · 3 district ·
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 Elgin Watch Co. v. Spaulding
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 155 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“* * * In order to produce uniformity in the imposition of duties, the dutiable classification of articles imported must be ascertained by an examination of the imported article itself, in the condition in which it is imported.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“watches, watch-cases, watch-movements, parts of watches, and watch materials, not specially enumerated or provided for in this act;”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The article in, question was, to all intents and purposes, raw material. If it were to be classed as watch materials,’ it would follow that any metal which could ultimately be used, and was ultimately used, in the manufacture of a watch, but could be used for other purposes also, would be dutiable as ‘ watch materials.’ In order to be ‘ watch materials ’ the article must in itself bear marks of its special adaptation for use in making watches. The fact that the article in question was used in the manufacture of watches has no relation to the condition of the article as imported, but to what afterwards the importer did with it.”
1 later decision 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.