Prevost v. Gratz’s Empirical Analysis
19 U.S. 481 · 1821
Citation profile
46 federal appellate · 16 district · 50 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 176 later decisions (21 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2006 · most notably County of Oneida New York v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York State New York (1985), King Ranch, Inc. v. Chapman (2003)
46 federal appellate · 16 district · 50 state decisions — followed in 19 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 Davoue v. Fanning
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 176 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““It is certainly true that length of time is no bar to a trust clearly established; and, in a case where fraud is imputed and proved, length of time ought not, upon principles of eternal justice, to be admitted to repel relief. On the contrary, it would seem that length of time, during which the fraud has been successfully concealed and practiced, is rather an aggravation of the offense, and calls more loudly upon a court of equity to grant ample and decisive relief.””
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““ ‘Fraud or breach of trust ought not lightly to be imputed to the living; for the legal presumption is the other way; and as to the dead, who are not here to answer for themselves, it would be the height of injustice and cruelty to disturb their ashes and violate the sanctity of the grave, unless the evidence of fraud be clear beyond a reasonable doubt.’ ””
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[G]eneral presumptions are raised by the law upon subjects of which there is no record or written instrument, not because there are the means of belief or disbelief, but because mankind, judging of matters of antiquity from the infirmity and necessity of their situation must, for the preservation of their property and rights, have recourse to some general principle, to take the place of individual and specific belief, which can hold only as to matters within our own time, upon which a conclusion can be formed from particular and individual knowledge.”
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.