William W. Bierce, Ltd. v. Hutchins’s Empirical Analysis
205 U.S. 340 · 1907
Citation profile
124 federal appellate · 33 district · 106 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 339 later decisions (17 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2010 · most notably Southern Pac Co v. Bogert (1919), Louisville Co v. Central Iron & Coal Co (1924)
124 federal appellate · 33 district · 106 state decisions — followed in 32 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 Arkansas Val Land Cattle Co v. Mann · Harkness v. Russell · United States v. Union Pacific Railroad · Chicago Railway Equipment Co. v. Merchants' Bank
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 339 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Election is simply what its name imports; a choice, shown by an overt act, between two inconsistent rights, either of which may be asserted at the will of the chooser alone.””
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Such sales sometimes are regulated by statute and put more pr less on tbe footing of mortgages. Witb tbe development of its effects there has been some reaction against tbe Benthamite doctrine of absolute freedom of contract. But courts are not Legislatures, and are not at liberty to invent and apply specific regulations according to tbeir notions of convenience. In tbe absence of a statute, tbeir only duty is to discover tbe meaning of tbe contract and to enforce it, without a leaning in either direction, when, as in the present case, tbe parties stood on an equal footing and were free to do wbat they chose.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Election is simply what its name imports: a choice, shown by an overt act, between two inconsistent rights, either of which may be asserted at the wil! of the chooser aIon,e. * * * The claim in the lien suit, as was said in a recent case, was not an election, but an hypothesis. * * * The fact that a party, through mistake, attempts to esereise a right to which he is not entitled, does not prevent his afterwards exercising one which he had and still has unless barred by the previous attempt.””
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.