Sears v. Treasurer & Receiver General’s Empirical Analysis
1951
Citation profile
82 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 82 later decisions — most recently July 2022 · most notably Sullivan v. Chief Justice for Administration & Management of the Trial Court (2006), Opinion of the Justices to the Senate (1986)
82 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 Field v. Clark · Stewart v. Finkelstone · Bowe v. Secretary of Commonwealth · Morse v. City of Boston · Prince v. Crocker
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 82 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“'No doubt details may be omitted or in many instances covered by broad generalizations, but mention must be made of at least the main features of the measure.'”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“[s]ince the people have themselves adopted the Constitution with its amendments for their government, they are bound by the provisions and conditions which they themselves have placed in it, and when they seek to enact laws by direct popular vote they must do so in strict compliance with those provisions and conditions. See Bowe v. Secretary of the Commonwealth, 320 Mass. 230, 247-248 [1946]. Failure to comply will mean that no valid law has been enacted, no matter how great the popular majority may have been in its favor. Only by preserving this fundamental principle can constitutional government be preserved and orderly progress assured. The question whether or not the requirements of the Constitution have been observed and a valid law has been enacted is a justiciable question to be determined in the last analysis by the judicial department of the government whenever the question arises in a proper proceeding in court.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“with certain precisely defined safeguards”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.