Schlein v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
160 F.2d 22 · 1947
Citation profile
29 federal appellate · 7 district · 11 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 52 later decisions — most recently June 2018 · most notably Shimman v. International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 18 (1984), Straub v. Vaisman & Co. (1976)
29 federal appellate · 7 district · 11 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 Ballard v. Spruill · Smith v. Schlein
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 52 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““ . . . We regard the fraud revealed by the record as gross in nature, practiced wilfully and oppressively upon untutored trusting victims who were long ignorant of their rights and but vaguely conscious of their wrongs. In such circumstances, it was proper to award counsel fees, under the rule concerning punitive damages stated in 8 R.C.L. 585, which we quoted with approval in Ballard v. Spruill, 64 App. D.C. 60 , 74 F. 2d 464 , 466: “ ‘ To warrant the allowance of such damages the act complained of must not only he unlawful hut must also partake somewhat of a criminal or wanton nature. And so it is an almost universally recognized rule that such damages may be recovered in cases, and only in such cases where the wrongful action complained of is characterized by some such circumstances of aggravation as willfulness, wantonness, malice, oppression, brutality, insult, recklessness, gross negligence, or gross fraud on the part of the defendant.’ ” 160 F. 2d at 25 (emphasis added).”
2 later decisions 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.