Rosewell Messinger v. Peter Anderson’s Empirical Analysis
Citation profile
8 federal appellate · 49 district · 123 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 368 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2025 · most notably Breen v. Phelps (1982), S.M.S. Textile Mills, Inc. v. Brown, Jacobson, Tillinghast, Lahan & King, P.C. (1993)
8 federal appellate · 49 district · 123 state decisions — followed in 39 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
reviewedthe decision below (from Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on New Orleans v. Citizens' Bank · Remington v. Central Pacific Railroad · Panama Co v. Napier Shipping Co · United States v. Denver & Rio Grande Railroad · Great Western Tel Co v. Burnham
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 368 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“expresses the practice of courts generally to refuse to reopen what has been decided,”
17 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Of course this court, at least, is free when the case comes here.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Re Ryan Minors
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.