Brown v. Elder’s Empirical Analysis
1904
Citation profile
20 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 20 later decisions — most recently February 1999
20 state decisions — followed in 10 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 Magoun v. Illinois Trust & Savings Bank · Cornelius Billings v. People of the State of Illinois · Hall v. United States · State v. Alston · Northwestern Manufacturing Co. v. Chambers
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 20 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The further objection here urged that the title of the act is too general is not usually a tenable one. Indeed, this court, in passing upon the titles of acts, has advised the general assembly against the attempt to make them too specific. It is true that.if the title is so general as to be misleading, it may be obnoxious to the constitutional provision under consideration, and courts in some cases have declared titles- so- general as to be misleading; such, for example, as Northwestern Mfg. Co. v. Chambers, 58 Mich. 381 , and Stegmaier v. Jones, 52 Atl. 56 , but there is no such objection to- the present title, in view- of the financial history of the state, of which the courts, as well as the people, are advised.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““We shall content ourselves merely with the general statement taken from the opinion of the supreme court of the United States in Magoun v. Ills. Trust & Sav. Bank, 170 U. S. 283 , in which the decree of the circuit court of the United States for the district of Illinois upholding the validity of the act of which ours is a substantial copy was affirmed, that the constitutionality of such taxes is based upon two principles: First, an inheritance tax is not one on property, but one on the succession; second, the right to take property by devise or descent is a creature of the law, and not a natural right, and therefore the authority which confers it may impose conditions upon it. ’ ’”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““We have already held that our law imposes a tax upon the privilege of taking, receiving and enjoying property that passes by will or under our intestate laws, and that authority for its imposition is found in the sovereign power of the state to lay tax upon privileges and successions.””
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.