United States v. Summerlin’s Empirical Analysis
310 U.S. 414 · 1940
Citation profile
516 federal appellate · 203 district · 125 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,550 later decisions (22 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2024 · most notably Occidental Life Insurance Company of California v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (1977), Badaracco v. Commissioner (1984)
516 federal appellate · 203 district · 125 state decisions — followed in 27 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 Board of Com'rs of Jackson County Kan v. United States · Guaranty Trust Co of New York v. United States · Graves v. People of State of New York O'Keefe · Associated Press v. National Labor Relations Board
Cited together with Guaranty Trust Co of New York v. United States · Board of Com'rs of Jackson County Kan v. United States · United States v. Thompson · Clearfield Trust Co. v. United States · Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc.
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 1,550 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[i]t is well settled that the United States is not bound by state statutes of limitation or subject to the defense of laches in enforcing its rights.”
29 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“When the United States becomes entitled to a claim, acting in its governmental capacity and asserts its claim in that right, it cannot be deemed to have abdicated its governmental authority so as to become subject to a state statute putting a time limit upon enforcement.”
18 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[I]f this were a statute merely determining the limits of the jurisdiction of a probate court and thus providing that the County Judge should have no jurisdiction to receive or pass upon claims not filed within the eight months, while leaving an opportunity to the United States otherwise to enforce its claim, the. authority of the State to impose such a limitation upon its probate court might be conceded. But if the statute, as sustained by the state court, undertakes to invalidate the claim of the United States, so that it cannot be enforced at all, because not filed within eight months, we think the statute in that sense transgressed the limits of state power.”
7 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.