Williamson v. Cain’s Empirical Analysis
1976
Citation profile
51 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 51 later decisions — most recently August 2014 · most notably Cairl v. State (1982), Nusbaum v. County of Blue Earth (1988)
51 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 Nieting v. Blondell · Cook v. Trovatten · People v. May · Johnson v. County of Steele · Nelson v. Babcock
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 51 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[w]hile the discretionary-ministerial distinction is a nebulous and difficult one because almost any act involves some measure of freedom of choice as well as some measure of perfunctory execution, the acts of the defendants here are clearly ministerial. Their job was simple and definite — to remove a house. While they undoubtedly had to make certain decisions in doing that job, the nature, quality, and complexity of their decision-making process does not entitle them to immunity from suit.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“absolute, certain, and imperative, involving merely execution of a specific duty arising from fixed and designated facts.”
2 later decisions 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.