Meyer v. Arthur’s Empirical Analysis
1876
Citation profile
1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 4 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 1974
1 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 United States v. Palmer · Nelson Elliott v. Samuel Swartwout · Tinkham v. . Tapscott · Meyer v. Arthur
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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The truth is, that, in the nature of things, a metal and its oxide or sulphate are totally distinct and unlike. Any substance subjected to a chemical chahge by uniting with another substance loses its identity: it becomes a different mineral species. The basis of common clay is the metal aluminum, and the basis of lime is the metal calcium. But no one would think of calling clay and lime metals; nor, if artificially made, would he call them manufactures of metals. They have lost all their metallic qualities. In just the same manner, iron ceases to be iron when it becomes rust, which is oxide of iron; or when it becomes copperas, which is sulphate of iron. None would think of calling blue vitriol copper. So white lead, nitrate of lead, oxide of zinc, and dry or orange mineral, are not metals: they have no metallic qualities. In the poverty of language, they have no distinct names, it is true, as lime and clay and vitriol have; but each is designated by a scientific periphrasis, in which the name of the metal which forms one of its chemical elements is used. This use of the name has probably been one cause of the confusion which has arisen on the subject. 8 [P. 577.]”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“When the act speaks of “manufactures of metals,” it obviously refers to manufactured articles in which metals form a component part. When we speak of manufactures of wood, of leather, or of iron, we refer to articles that have those substances respectively for their component parts, and not to articles in which they have lost their form entirely, and have become the chemical ingredients of new forms. The qualification which is added to the phrase “manufactures of metals”- — namely “manufactures of metals of which either of them” (that is, either of the metals) “is the component part of chief value” — corroborates this view.”
1 later decision 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.