Weaver v. Palmer Bros.’s Empirical Analysis
270 U.S. 402 · 1926
Citation profile
21 federal appellate · 24 district · 115 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 223 later decisions (17 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2019 · most notably United States v. Carolene Products Co. (1938), Whitney v. People of State of California (1927)
21 federal appellate · 24 district · 115 state decisions — followed in 24 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 Meyer v. State of Nebraska · Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon · Simpson v. Shepard · Cohens v. Virginia · Lawton v. Steele
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 223 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"The result is that the Syndicalism Act has been applied in this case to sustain .the conviction of the defendant, without any charge or evidence that the organization in which he secured members advocated any crime, violence, or other unlawful acts or methods as a means of effecting industrial or political changes or revolution. Thus applied, the act is an arbitrary and unreasonable exercise of the police power of the state, unwarrantably infringing the liberty of the defendant, in violation of the due-process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““A classification is not to be pronounced arbitrary because it goes on practical grounds and attacks only those objects that exhibit or foster an evil on a large scale. It is not required to be mathematically precise and to embrace every case that theoretically is capable of doing the same harm. ‘If the law presumably hits the evil where it is most felt, it is not to be overthrown because there are other instances to which it might have been applied.’ ””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““ ‘Legislative determinations are entitled to great weight; but it is always open to interested parties to show that the legislature has transgressed the limits of its power. A state law forbidding the use in comfortables, of shoddy, even when sterilized, is so far arbitrary and unreasonable that it violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. ’”
1 later decision 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.