Lehigh Zinc & Iron Co. v. Bamford’s Empirical Analysis
150 U.S. 665 · 1893
Citation profile
72 federal appellate · 13 district · 22 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 141 later decisions (6 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 2011 · most notably Ultramares Corp. v. Touche (1931), Gagne v. Bertran (1954)
72 federal appellate · 13 district · 22 state decisions — followed in 10 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 141 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Looking at all the provisions of the lease, it is clear that the defendant engaged to pay, as rent in each year, the royalties fixed in the lease, and if in any year the royalties fell below the sum of $1,000, it was to make up the deficit, so that the latter sum should, in any event, be paid annually as rent. The defendant took the chance of a failure to find ore in sufficient quantities to justify working the mines, and the plaintiffs took the chance of not obtaining more than $1,000, annually, during the existence of the lease, for the use of buildings and fixtures that had cost them more than $60,000. To secure the páyment, annually, of at least $1,000, the right was reserved to the plaintiffs to terminate the lease if the company failed in any year to pay that sum as rent; and that the company might get the advantage of any developments indicating that the leased premises were of substantial value, the exclusive privilege was reserved to it of purchasing them at any time while the lease remained in force for the price of $125,000.””
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.