United States v. O'Donnell’s Empirical Analysis
303 U.S. 501 · 1938
Citation profile
23 federal appellate · 6 district · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 83 later decisions (27 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2017 · most notably United States v. Appalachian Electric Power Co. (1940), United States v. Dickinson (1947)
23 federal appellate · 6 district · 3 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
reviewedO'Donnell v. United States (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on St.louis Smelting and Refining Company v. Kemp. · Knight v. United Land Ass'n · De La Fayette Wilcox v. John Jackson · Leavenworth Lawrence and Galveston Railroad Company v. United States · United States v. State of Minnesota
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 83 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“invest[ed] the state in praesenti with an inchoate title to those lands falling within the description of the act, to be perfected as of the date of the act when the land should be identified and the patent issued.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““The primary purpose of the Mexican Claims Act was the performance by the United States of its treaty obligations to quiet the titles of the claimants under Spanish and Mexican grants. But a necessary consequence of proceeding before the Commission, and one incidental to the determination of the validity of the titles of such claimants, was a determination whether, by the cession, the lands in question had become a part of the public domain of the United States. It is evident that the treaty obligations to quiet the title of' claimants under Mexican grants would be defeated and the Mexican Claims Act would fail of its purpose if the finality of the Board’s confirmation of claims under Mexican grants could be challenged by persons claiming under grants of public lands by the United States. For that reason it has been consistently held that claimants under the United States, by virtue of statutes disposing of its public lands in California, are not ‘third persons’ within the meaning of the Mexican Claims Act, and that confirmation under that act of claims under Mexican grants is conclusive upon all those claiming under the United States.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Blue v. McKay“It is a familiar principle of public land law that statutes providing generally for disposal of the public domain are inapplicable to lands which are not unqualifiedly subject to sale and disposition because they have been appropriated to some other purpose.”
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.