Smith v. Ryan’s Empirical Analysis
1927
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 7 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 13 later decisions — most recently October 2008
2 federal appellate · 7 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 Johnson v. Aylor · National Surety Co. v. Bertig Bros. · Johnson v. Ankrum · Cheney v. Auto Fedan Hay Press Co. · Horn v. Brand
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 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The burden of proving defenses of an affirmative nature, or in confession and avoidance, is upon the defendant. The reason is obvious. In such instances the effect of the pleading is to admit the material allegations of the complaint or declaration, but to seek to avoid the effect thereof by the affirmative allegation of new matter avoiding plaintiff s case. If the defendant pleads a release, in abatement, a discharge in bankruptcy, or other substantive defense, the burden is upon him to prove such affirmative defense and forms no part of the plaintiff’s averments.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Poff v. Brown
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.