Sheldon v. Sheldon’s Empirical Analysis
1926
Citation profile
21 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 22 later decisions — most recently May 1990
21 state decisions
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 Pennoyer v. Neff · In re the Release or Relinquishment of the Right of Dower of Martin · McGuinness v. McGuinness · Clough v. McDonald · Crowell v. Botsford
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 22 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“As to mandatory and directory statutes, it is said that when the provision of an act is the essence of the thing required to be *Page 554 done it is mandatory; otherwise, when it relates to form and manner, and where an act is incident, it is directory merely. Bouv. L. Dict. ( Rawle's 3d rev. ) 3130. The essence of the provision under consideration is service, not time of service; the latter is rather an incident of the main purpose, except that service must be made in time to prevent any curtailment of the period allowed after the return day for filing an answer. The word `shall' is to be construed as merely permissive when no public benefit or private right requires it to be given an imperative meaning.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“when the provision of an act is the essence of the thing required to be done it is mandatory; otherwise, when it relates to form and manner, and where an act is incident, it is directory,”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“negative words restraining him from doing it afterwards.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.