Colson v. Thompson’s Empirical Analysis
15 U.S. 336 · 1817
Citation profile
17 federal appellate · 11 district · 56 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 116 later decisions (6 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2017 · most notably Joy v. City of St Louis (1891), Joseph Guffey v. James a Smith (1915)
17 federal appellate · 11 district · 56 state decisions — followed in 25 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.
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 116 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The contract wbicb is sought to be specifically executed ought not only to be proved, but the terms of it should be so precise as that neither party could reasonably misunderstand them. If the contract be vague or uncertain, or the evidence to establish it be insufficient, a court of equity -will not exercise its extraordinary jurisdiction to enforce it, but will leave the party to his legal remedy.””
10 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.