Benton v. Clay’s Empirical Analysis
1921
Citation profile
23 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 23 later decisions — most recently June 2019
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 Louisiana Ry. & Nav. Co. v. Xavier Realty, Ltd. · Central Bitulithic Paving Co. v. Village of Highland Park · Winslow v. Gayle · Searcy v. Fayette Home Telephone · Thompson v. Thompson
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.
““It is unfortunate that the condition of the record-is such as prevents us from adjudicating the single question raised against the validity of that election; but it is a firmly settled rule in this and all other courts that it will not assume jurisdiction to determine abstract or moot questions and thereby consume and appropriate its time in academic discussion, since courts are created for the purpose of trying cases rather than questions. . . . There is now no existing controversy between any of the -parties to this action, although-it'is quite-probable that as members of the public in the city of Henderson they are indirectly interested in having the question of the validity of the 1920 election settled, but all citizens of the state or of any, municipality therein might be said to have the same indirect interest in the settlement of all public questions affecting the territory involved. ’ ’”
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.