Thayer v. McCaslin, Controller’s Empirical Analysis
1934
Citation profile
18 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 18 later decisions — most recently October 1988
18 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 Commonwealth ex rel. Century Co. v. City of Philadelphia · Commonwealth v. Larkin · Schenley Farms Co. v. McGovern · Nicely v. Raker · Commonwealth v. Wertz
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 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Section 341 . . . provides: The controller shall have a general supervision and control of the fiscal affairs of the county, and of the accounts and official acts of all officers or other persons who shall collect, receive or distribute the public moneys of the county, or who shall be charged with the management or custody thereof.’ This refers to the accounting side of the county’s business, not the contracting and management part thereof. Controllers are not overlords of the other county officers. ... He [the controller] is not intrusted with the duty of making, or even of supervising the contracts of other departments. He is the city’s head bookkeeper, and his office is to see that the various departments do not exceed their appropriations, nor apply them to purposes not within their proper scope. To this end he is clothed with very large powers of examination and investigation, and a large measure of discretion, but they do not extend to the revision of lawful contracts made by other departments within their proper sphere.’ ””
1 later decision quote this exact passage““Where a statute has conferred upon certain officials the power to act with respect to a particular matter, the controller cannot nullify their acts by refusing to recognize a contract which they make. His duty in such circumstances is ministerial.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Thomas v. Leidich
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.