Dowell v. Winters’s Empirical Analysis
1858
Citation profile
39 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 40 later decisions — most recently May 2000 · most notably Ivy v. Carrell (1966), Bank One, Texas, N.A. v. Moody (1992)
39 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 40 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“But, where the trial has not been delayed, and there is an affidavit of merits, we think the default should be set aside, and the answer received, upon some showing by way of excuse for the failure to plead in time. The excuse proffered in this case was certainly very slight. But it appears that the counsel acted under a mistake of law. Both counsel and client appear finally to have done their best to make amends; they present what seems to be a strong case of merits; and there is reason to apprehend that, if not allowed to make defense, irreparable injury may be the consequence. For, having no such excuse for not having made his defense to the action as a court of equity would deem sufficient, the defendant may not be entitled to an injunction to stay execution upon the judgment, until he shall have established his cross-demands against the plaintiff in another suit. It does not appear that the trial would have been delayed; the plaintiff would not have been injured or hindered by reason of the default; and, on the whole, we conclude that the court ought, under the circumstances, to have set aside the judgment by default, upon the payment of costs, and permitted the defendant to answer to the merits of the action, and that the court erred in refusing it.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“It is obvious that such applications ought not to prevail, where the effect would be to delay the trial, unless upon a good excuse for the default, and the presentation of a meritorious defense.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Cunningham v. Gaines
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.