Thompson v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1930
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 63 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 67 later decisions — most recently April 2016 · most notably Pressman v. Barnes (1956), Commonwealth v. Ellett (1939)
3 federal appellate · 63 state decisions — followed in 22 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 Hall v. Geiger-Jones Co. · Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio · State ex rel. Crumpton v. Montgomery · Coal & Coke Ry. Co. v. Conley · Ex parte Dickey
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 67 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“* * * Government could not be efficiently carried on if something could not be left to the judgment and discretion of administrative officers to accomplish in detail what is authorized or required by law in general terms. Without this power legislation would become either oppressive or inefficient. There would be confusion in the laws, and in an effort to detail and particularize, the law would miss sufficiency both in provision and detail. * * *.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Mere matters of detail within the policy, and the legal principles and standards established by the statute or ordinance, may properly be left to administrative discretion, for the determination of such matters of detail is more essentially ministerial than legislative. In declaring the policy of the law and fixing the legal principles and standards which are to control in the administration of the law, general terms, which get precision from the technical knowledge or sense and experience of men and thereby become reasonably certain, may be used; and an administrative officer or bureau may be invested with the power to ascertain and determine whether the qualifications, facts or conditions comprehended in and required by such general terms exist, and whether the provisions of the law so fixed and declared have been complied with in accordance with the generally accepted meaning of the words.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“The invalidity or unconstitutionality of a statute or ordinance is not of itself a ground of equity jurisdiction. A court of equity has not jurisdiction to enjoin acts only because they are attempted or threatened under color of an unconstitutional or void statute or ordinance. * * *.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. NAACP v. Committee
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.