American Tobacco Company v. Emil Werckmeister’s Empirical Analysis
207 U.S. 284 · 1907
Citation profile
92 federal appellate · 41 district · 53 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 333 later decisions (31 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2011 · most notably Weeks v. United States (1914), Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States (1920)
92 federal appellate · 41 district · 53 state decisions — followed in 14 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedAmerican Tobacco Co. v. Werckmeister (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Edwin Hale v. William Henkel · Albert Adams v. People of the State of New York · Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony · Henry Wheaton v. Richard Peters
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 333 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[I]n construing a statute we are not always confined to a literal reading, and may consider its object and purpose, the things with which it is dealing,- and the condition of affairs which led to its enactment so as to effectuate rather than destroy the spirit and force of the law which the legislature intended to enact.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“such a dissemination of the work of art itself among the public, as to justify the belief that it took place with the intention of rendering such work common property.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts,”
3 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.