Downs v. Jacobs’s Empirical Analysis
1970
Citation profile
1 district · 24 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 25 later decisions — most recently June 2013 · most notably 5 Cal. 3d 536 - Randone v. Appellate Department (1971), DeShields v. State (1987)
1 district · 24 state decisions — followed in 10 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 Goldberg v. Kelly · Linkletter v. Walker · Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp. of Bay View · Norton v. Shelby County · Ownbey v. Morgan
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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“. Citizens . . . have a right to accept the law as it is written until it is repealed or judicially condemned. They are not required to speculate upon the validity of a statute or to act under it at their peril. Until legislatively or judicially excised, a statute is an operative fact. Courts presume every legislative act constitutional and indulge every intendment in favor of validity. No penalty may be visited upon citizens for doing likewise. .”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“At common law, a declaration of unconstitutionality had complete retroactive effect. Thus it was said that an unconstitutional law `confers no rights; it imposes no duties; it affords no protection; it creates no office; it is, in legal contemplation, as inoperative as though it had never been passed.' (citations omitted). This Blackstonian view, based on the theory that judges discover, rather than make the law, has been considerably eroded with time, and is not the law in Arizona.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“. we hold that the tenant may not recover damages from the landlord or the constable for a good faith reliance upon the Landlord Distress Law, even though the Law may be subsequently declared unconstitutional and invalid.”
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.