Illinois Surety Company v. John Davis Company E H B’s Empirical Analysis
244 U.S. 376 · 1917
Citation profile
309 federal appellate · 103 district · 141 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 696 later decisions (18 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2024 · most notably F. D. Rich Co. v. United States Ex Rel. Industrial Lumber Co. (1974), Clifford Macevoy Co v. United States (1944)
309 federal appellate · 103 district · 141 state decisions — followed in 33 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 States ex rel. John Davis Co. v. Illinois Surety Co. (from Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Dickerson v. Colgrove · United States Upon the Relation and for the Use and Benefit of Texas Portland Cement Company v. D C McCord · United States v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co. · United States ex rel. Hill v. American Surety Co.
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 696 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(T)echnical rules otherwise protecting sureties from liability have never been applied in proceedings under this statute”
17 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“"Stripped of all technicality, plaintiff and intervenor seek to recover damages claimed to have been incurred because of the breach by the contractor of an implied covenant in the sub-contract against unreasonable delays preventing the subcontractors from proceeding with their work. The parties recognize this, because in the only point relied upon in their designation of points, it is asserted that: ‘ * * * a subcontractor can recover his damages consisting of expenses made necessary by the delay of the principal contractor in a proceeding to recover on the bond under the Heard Act, 40 U.S.Code, Sec. 270.’ They cite numerous authorities to sustain their position that every contract contains an implied warranty against unnecessary delays and that recovery may be had for loss resulting from a breach thereof. These decisions are beside the point, because they arose in actions against the contractor for damages and not against the surety on a Heard Act bond. “The bond on which the action is based is not set out in the abstract, but we may assume that it is in due form and conforms to the requirements of the Act. The Act obligates the surety company to see that the contractor ‘shall promptly make payments to all persons supplying him or them with labor and materials in the prosecution of the work provided for in such contract.’ It requires payment not only of work and materials specifically mentioned in the contract, but also those items which the parties necessarily and reasonabl”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The equipment was used in the prosecution of the work.”
5 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.