Smith v. Hefner’s Empirical Analysis
1952
Citation profile
127 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 149 later decisions — most recently September 2016 · most notably Smith v. State (1976), Meyer v. Walls (1997)
127 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 Prudential Insurance Co. of America v. Powell · Schloss v. State Highway & Public Works Commission · Kirby v. Stokes County Board of Education · Miller v. Jones · Dalton v. State Highway & Public Works Commission
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 149 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It is settled law in this jurisdiction that a public official, engaged in the performance of governmental duties involving the exercise of judgment and discretion, may not be held personally liable for mere negligence in respect thereto.”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage“`By application of this principle, a subordinate division of the state, or agency exercising statutory governmental functions ... may be sued only when and as authorized by statute.'”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“It is an established principle of jurisprudence, resting on grounds of sound public policy, that a state may not be sued in its own courts or elsewhere unless by statute it has consented to be sued or has otherwise waived its immunity from suit.”
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.