Wilson v. Kelley’s Empirical Analysis
1992
Citation profile
2 district · 149 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 151 later decisions — most recently July 2025 · most notably Mannweiler v. LaFlamme (1995), Stafford Higgins Industries, Inc. v. City of Norwalk (1998)
2 district · 149 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 Horton v. Meskill · RI HOSPITAL TRUST NAT. BANK v. Boiteau · Orticelli v. Powers · Firstamerica Corp. v. United States · Beckenstein v. Potter & Carrier, Inc.
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 151 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The purpose of a declaratory judgment action . . . is to secure an adjudication of rights where there is a substantial question in dispute or a substantial uncertainty of legal relations between the parties . . . and to make certain that the declaration will conclusively settle the whole controversy.”
17 later decisions quote this exact passage“An action for declaratory judgment is a special proceeding.”
11 later decisions quote this exact passage“The superior court in any action or proceeding may declare rights and other legal relations on request for such a declaration, whether or not further relief is or could be claimed. The declaration shall have the force of a final judgment.”
9 later decisions 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.