Duffy v. Hartsock’s Empirical Analysis
1948
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 1 district · 88 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 104 later decisions — most recently April 2015 · most notably Shiflet v. Eller (1984), Paul v. Paul (1974)
6 federal appellate · 1 district · 88 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 Mulvey v. City of Boston · Ferguson v. Ferguson · Gloucester Realty Corp. v. Guthrie · Allen v. Mottley Construction Co. · Whitlock v. Hawkins
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 104 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Retrospective laws are not favored, and a statute is always to be construed as operating prospectively, unless a contrary intent is manifest; but the legislature may, in its discretion, pass retrospective and curative laws provided they do not partake of the nature of what are technically called ex post facto laws, and do not impair the obligation of contracts, or disturb vested rights; and provided, further, they are of such nature as the legislature might have passed in the first instance to act prospectively.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“So far as mere modes of procedure are concerned, a party has no more right in a criminal than in a civil action to insist that his case shall be disposed of under the law in force when the act to be investigated is charged to have taken place. And where an act or amendment relates solely to matters of remedy, it may be retrospective in operation. In West Virginia, remedial statutes, which neither create new rights nor take away vested ones are not within the strict application of the rule.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Roderick v. Hough“Furthermore, it is well settled that the legislature, without violation of the guaranties of due process of law, may reduce the period in which actions may be brought and may make such reduction applicable to existing causes of action, “subject however to the conditions that it may not entirely take away the right to sue, nor so unreasonably shorten the period as practically to take away all remedy.” 16 C.J.S. Constitutional Law, Sec. 615.”
1 later decision 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.