United States Wilhelm v. Chain’s Empirical Analysis
300 U.S. 31 · 1937
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 37 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 44 later decisions — most recently May 2021 · most notably Bruce v. Dyer (1987), Colorado National Bank of Denver v. Friedman (1993)
3 federal appellate · 37 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedChain v. Wilhelm (from Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Davis v. Wells · Davis Sewing Machine Co. v. Richards · Kernochan v. . Murray · Jordan v. Dobbins
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 44 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[i]t is a presumption of law that the parties to a contract bind not only themselves but their personal representatives. Executors, therefore, are held to be liable on all contracts of the testator which are broken in his lifetime, and, with the exception of contracts in which personal skill or taste is required, on all contracts broken after his death.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“We are of [the] opinion that the bond was not a mere offer but was given upon a present and sufficient consideration, and therefore became a binding contract when it was delivered to and approved by the bankruptcy court.”
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.