Stevens v. Irwin’s Empirical Analysis
1860
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 41 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 45 later decisions — most recently August 1980 · most notably 109 Cal. App. 415 - McCaffey C. Co., Inc. v. Bank of America (1930), Hassell v. Bunge (1914)
2 federal appellate · 41 state decisions — followed in 12 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 Sturtevant v. Ballard · Bacon v. Scannell
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 45 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““A reasonable construction must be given to tbis language, in analogy to the doctrines of the courts holding the general principles transcribed into the statute. The delivery must be made of the property, the vendee must take the actual possession; that possession must be open and unequivocal, carrying with it the usual marks and indications of ownership by the vendee. It must be such as to give evidence to the world of the claims of the new owner. He must, in other words, be in the usual relation to the property which owners of goods occupy to their property. This possession must be continuous — not taken to be surrendered back again — not formal, but substantial. But it need not necessarily continue indefinitely, when it is bona fide and openly taken, and is kept for such a length of time as to give general advertisement to the status of the property and the claim to it by the vendee.””
2 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.