Clement Smith v. The President and Directors of the Union Bank of Georgetown’s Empirical Analysis
30 U.S. 518 · 1831
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 16 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 29 later decisions (3 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 1969 · most notably 17 Cal. 2d 108 - Biewend v. Biewend (1941), George Harrison v. Henry Nixon (1835)
6 federal appellate · 16 state decisions
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 Stevens v. Gaylord · Rodford v. Craig · Thomas Willison v. Anderson Watkins · Holmes v. Remsen
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 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The actual course of legislative action in every civilized country, upon the effects of deceased persons, seems wisely calculated to guard against the embarrassments arising out of such conflicts, and to preserve in their own hands the means oí administering justice, according to their own laws and institutions. . . . “Whether it would or would not be politic to establish a different rule by a convention of the states, under constitutional sanction, is not a question for our consideration. But such an arrangement could only be carried into effect by a reciprocal relinquishment of the right of granting administration to the country of the domicil of the deceased exclusively, and the mutual concession of the right to the administrator, so constituted, to prosecute suits every where, in virtue of the power so locally granted him; both of which concessions would most materially interfere with the exercise of sovereign right, as at present generally asserted and exercised.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““The law of the place where the contract is made is, generally speaking, the law of the contract; i. e., it is the law by which the contract is expounded. But the right of priority forms no part of the contract itself. It is extrinsic, and is rather a personal privilege, dependent on the law of the place where the property lies, and where the court sits which is to decide the cause. In the familiar case of the administration of the estate of a deceased person, the assets are always distributed according to the dignity of the debt, as regulated by the law of the country where the representative of the deceased acts, and from which he derives his powers; not by the law of the country where the contract was made.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““In point of fact it cannot be questioned, that goods thus found within the limits of a sovereign’s jurisdiction, are subject to his laws; it would be an absurdity in terms to affirm the contrary . . .””
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.