United Copper Securities Company v. Amalgamated Copper Company’s Empirical Analysis
244 U.S. 261 · 1917
Citation profile
134 federal appellate · 42 district · 82 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 417 later decisions (13 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2017 · most notably Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority (1936), Ross v. Bernhard (1970)
134 federal appellate · 42 district · 82 state decisions — followed in 16 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
reviewedUnited Copper Securities Co. v. Amalgamated Copper Co. (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Hawes v. Oakland · Fleitmann ex rel. Stockholders of the Consolidated Street Lighting Co. v. Welsbach Street Lighting Co. · Delaware Hudson Company v. Albany & Susquehanna Railroad Company · Railway Company v. Twombly
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 417 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Whether or not a corporation shall seek to enforce in the courts a cause of action for damages is, like other business questions, ordinarily a matter of internal management and is left to the discretion of the directors, in the absence of instruction by vote of the stockholders. Courts interfere seldom to control such discretion intra vires the corporation, except where the directors are guilty of misconduct equivalent to a breach of trust, or where they stand in a dual relation which prevents an unprejudiced exercise of judgment.”
25 later decisions 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.