Thomas v. Belcher’s Empirical Analysis
1939
Citation profile
5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently February 1977
5 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 Hunt v. W. T. Rawleigh Medical Co. · Petropole v. Jacobs · Sparkman v. W. T. Rawleigh Co. · Stewart v. W. T. Rawleigh Medical Co. · Brooks v. J. R. Watkins Medical 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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““ * * * The illegality of contracts in restraint of commerce is a product of public policy. If such contracts are not contrary to public policy they violate neither the federal nor the state anti-trust laws. Until a commercial arrangement between parties reaches a stage where commodities needful to the public welfare are restricted commercially to the point where the public is exposed to the evils of monopoly such arrangement is not in restraint of trade within the meaning of the anti-trust laws.””
1 later decision 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.