Charles Cotting v. A a Godard’s Empirical Analysis
183 U.S. 79 · 1901
Citation profile
31 federal appellate · 90 district · 158 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 526 later decisions (64 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2025 · most notably Ex Parte: Edward T Young (1908), Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority (1936)
31 federal appellate · 90 district · 158 state decisions — followed in 33 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 Yick Wo v. Hopkins · Smyth v. Ames · Munn v. Illinois · Barbier v. Connolly · Reagan v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.
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 526 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““A statute (although in terms opening the doors of the courts to a particular litigant) which plaees upon him as a penalty for a failure to make good his claim or defense a burden so great as to practically intimidate him from asserting that which he believes to be his rights is, when no such penalty is inflicted upon others, tantamount to a denial of the equal protection of the laws. * * * It is doubtless true that the state may impose penalties such as will tend to compel obedience to its mandates by all, individuals or corporations, and if extreme and cumulative penalties are imposed only after there has been a final determination of the validity of the statute, the question would be very different from that here persented. But when the Legislature, in an effort to prevent any inquiry of the validity of a particular statute, so burdens any) challenge thereof in the courts that the party affected is necessarily constrained to submit rather than take the chances of the penalties imposed, then it becomes a serious question whether the party is not deprived of the equal protection of the laws.””
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Every partial or private law, which directly proposes 1o destroy or affect individual rights, or does the same thing by niTorilmg remedies leading to similar consequences, is unconstitutional and void. Were this otherwise, odious individuals and corporate bodies would be governed by one rule, and the mass of the community, who made the law, by another.””
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Every one has a right to demand that he be governed by general rules, and a special statute which, without his consent, singles his case out as one to be regulated by a different law from that which is applied in all similar cases, would not be legitimate legislation, but would be such an arbitrary mandate as is not within the province of free governments. ... It is emphasized in that clause of the Fourteenth amendment which prohibits any state to deny to any individual the equal protection of the laws.””
2 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.