United States v. Eaton’s Empirical Analysis
144 U.S. 677 · 1892
Citation profile
147 federal appellate · 88 district · 34 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 412 later decisions (49 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2026 · most notably Krulewitch v. United States (1949), United States v. Grimaud (1911)
147 federal appellate · 88 district · 34 state decisions — followed in 13 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 United States v. Hudson · Kendall v. United States ex rel. Stokes · Smith v. Whitney · Manchester v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts
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 412 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““It is a principle of criminal law that an offense which may be the subject of criminal procedure is an act committed or omitted ‘in violation of a public law either forbidding or commanding it.’ ””
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a criminal offense in a citizen, where a statute does not distinctly make the neglect in question a criminal offense.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“if a party shall knowingly, or wil-fully, omit, neglect, or refuse to do, or cause to be done, any of the things required by law in the carrying on or conducting of his business, or shall do anything by this act prohibited, ... he shall pay a penalty,”
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.