Smith v. Martin’s Empirical Analysis
1878
Citation profile
7 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently November 1968
7 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.
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 7 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““When an oifieer makes a return upon process, it is, to say the least, as against him prima facie correct, and he should not be permitted to amend it until he makes it clear that it was erroneous. This, true in all cases, is especially true when the effect of the return as first made is a liability upon him, and the amendment would operate to relieve him from liability. And still more true, when the party in whose favor the return was made, resting upon the faith of the return, would suffer loss by the amendment.” (p. 573.)”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. McPherson v. Harvey
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.