Staples v. Gilmer’s Empirical Analysis
1945
Citation profile
23 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 23 later decisions — most recently July 1978
23 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 State ex rel. Corry v. Cooney · Opinion of the Court to the Governor in the Matter of the Constitutional Convention · Wells v. Bain · State v. American Sugar Refining Co. · Bradford v. Shine
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 23 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Upon turning to and reading Art. 14 it must be conceded that its language is clear, explicit and unambiguous. It does not say that the General Assembly and the Governor, or the General Assembly with the approval of the Governor, but ‘The General Assembly may propose amendments to this Constitution, provided, that each amendment shall be embraced in a separate bill, etc.’ Such a proposal is not legislation. It is required to be passed by ‘three-fifths of all the members elected to each of the two houses,’ whilst a majority only is needed for the adoption of legislative measures; and even after receiving the prescribed number of votes in both houses it continues to be a bill and never becomes a law, though if adopted by the vote of the people it is thereafter incorporated in the Constitution. ‘The bill or bills proposing amendment or amendments shall be published by the order of the Governor, etc.’ The thing to be published is a bill proposing an amendment. * * * The right which the Governor has to sign or to veto is strictly confined to bills which when signed, or if vetoed, when passed by the requisite vote over the veto, become laws. Hence, the test as to whether a particular measure adopted by the General Assembly is one which the Governor must sign to give it efficacy, is the fact that when signed it becomes, at once and in virtue of being signed, a law and thereupon ceases to be a bill. ‘Every bill * * * shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the Governor, etc.’”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““* * * People who, acting under a proper resolution of the legislature, vote in favor of calling a constitutional convention are presumed to ratify the terms of the legislative call, which thereby becomes the basis of the authority delegated (by the people) to the convention. * * *””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. West v. Carr
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.