Watson v. State Comptroller’s Empirical Analysis
254 U.S. 122 · 1920
Citation profile
9 federal appellate · 12 district · 55 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 148 later decisions (53 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 2015 · most notably Chas Steward Mach Co v. Davis (1937), Madden v. Commonwealth of Kentucky (1940)
9 federal appellate · 12 district · 55 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.
Relationships
Relies on Magoun v. Illinois Trust & Savings Bank · People of the State of New York Ex Rel Albert Hatch v. Edward Reardon a · Maxwell v. Bugbee · Fred Keeney v. Comptroller of the State of New York · Louisa Kidd v. State of Alabama
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 148 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Any classification is permissible which has a reasonable relation to some permitted end of govern mental action. * * * It is enough, for instance, if the classification is reasonably founded in ‘the purposes and policy of taxation.’ ””
3 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.