Gompers v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
233 U.S. 604 · 1914
Citation profile
108 federal appellate · 21 district · 124 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 379 later decisions (80 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2018 · most notably United States v. United Mine Workers of America (1947), Green v. United States (1957)
108 federal appellate · 21 district · 124 state decisions — followed in 29 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
reviewed40 App. D.C. 293 - Re Gompers (from District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Gompers v. Bucks Stove & Range Co. · United States v. Kissel · Bessette v. W. B. Conkey Co. · Robertson v. Baldwin
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 379 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“These contempts are infractions of the law, visited with punishment as such. If such acts are not criminal, we are in error as to the most fundamental characteristic of crimes as that word has been understood in English speech.”
20 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Even if the statute [of limitation] does not cover the case by its express words, as we think it does, still, in dealing with the punishment of crime a rule should be laid down, if not by Congress by this court. The power to punish for contempt must have some limit in time, and in defining that limit we should have regard to what has been the policy of the law from the foundation of the Government. By analogy, if not by enactment, the limit is three years. The case cannot be concluded otherwise so well as in the language of Chief Justice Marshall in a case where the statute was held applicable to an action of debt for a penalty .... "[I]t deserves some consideration, that if it does not limit actions of debt for penalties, those actions might, in many cases, be brought at any distance of time. This would be utterly repugnant to the genius of our laws.” [Gompers v. United States, 233 U.S. 604, 612-13 , 58 L. Ed. 1115 , 34 S. Ct. 693 (1914) (emphasis added) (quoting from Adams v. Woods, 6 U.S. (2 Cranch) 336, 340-42 , 2 L. Ed. 297 (1804)).]”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The English courts seem to think it wise, even when there is much seeming reason for the exercise of a summary power, to leave the punishment of this class of contempts to the regular and formal criminal process.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Handler v. Gordon
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.