Holden v. Hardy’s Empirical Analysis
169 U.S. 366 · 1898
Citation profile
87 federal appellate · 53 district · 404 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 934 later decisions (139 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2025 · most notably Powell v. State of Alabama Patterson (1932), Singleton v. Wulff (1976)
87 federal appellate · 53 district · 404 state decisions — followed in 45 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 Boyd v. United States · Yick Wo v. Hopkins · Hurtado v. People of the State of California · Munn v. Illinois · Strauder v. West Virginia
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 934 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The question in each ease is whether the legislature has adopted the statute in exercise of a reasonable discretion, or whether its action be a mere excuse for an unjust discrimination or the oppression, or spoliation of a particular class.””
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““But the fact that both parties are of full age and competent to contract does not necessarily deprive the state of the powe!r to interfere where the parties do not stand upon an equality, or where the public health demands that one party to the contract shall be protected against himself. ‘The state still retains an interest in his welfare, however reckless he may. be. The whole is no greater than the sum of all the parts, and when the individual health, safety and welfare are sacrificed or neglected, the state must suffer.’ ” (Page 397.)”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]here are certain immutable principles of justice which inhere in the very idea of free government which no member of the Union may disregard.”
4 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.