Watson v. Walker’s Empirical Analysis
1851
Citation profile
1 district · 29 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 31 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 1932 · most notably Hayes v. Michigan Central Railroad (1884), Aldrich v. Wright (1873)
1 district · 29 state decisions — followed in 10 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.
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 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““ In relation to notice the rule is, that whenever the fact upon which the defendant’s liability is incurred, lies peculiarly within the knowledge and privity of the plaintiff, notice thereof must be stated to have been given to the defendant. But where the matter lies as much within the cognizance of the one party, as the other, notice is not necessary. When, however, notice is necessary, either by the terms or nature of the contract, it is of the gist of the action, and must be specially averred in the declaration, for without such averment, no complete right of action can appear.””
1 later decision 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.