Land US v. Dollar’s Empirical Analysis
330 U.S. 731 · 1947
Citation profile
934 federal appellate · 628 district · 81 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3,160 later decisions (54 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman (1984), Warden, Maryland Penitentiary v. Hayden (1967)
934 federal appellate · 628 district · 81 state decisions — followed in 17 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedDollar v. Land (from District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on McNutt v. General Motors Acceptance Corp. · United States v. General Motors Corp. · United States v. Lee · Gibbs v. Buck
Cited together with Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Commerce Corp. · Dugan v. Rank · United States v. Lee · McNutt v. General Motors Acceptance Corp. · Scheuer v. Rhodes
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 3,160 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the judgment sought would expend itself on the public treasury or domain, or interfere with the public administration,”
42 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[W]hen a question of the District Court's jurisdiction is raised, either by a party or by the court on its own motion, ... the court may inquire, by affidavits or otherwise, into the facts as they exist.”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““ * * * But public officials may become tort-feasors by exceeding the limits of their authority. And where they unlawfully seize or hold a citizen’s realty or chattels, recoverable by appropriate action at law or in equity, he is not relegated to the Court of Claims to recover a money judgment. The dominant interest of the sovereign is then on the side of the victim ■who may bring his possessory action to reclaim that which is wrongfully withheld. “It is in the latter category that the pleadings have cast this case. That is to say, if the allegations of the petition are true, the shares of stock never were property of the United States and are being wrongfully withheld by petitioners who acted in excess of their authority as public officers. If ownership of the shares is in the United States, suit to recover them would of course be a suit against the United States. But if it is decided on the merits either that the contract was illegal or that respondents are pledgors, they are entitled to possession of the shares as against petitioners, though, as we have said, the judgment would not be res judicata as against the United States. See United States v. Lee, supra, 106 U.S. 196 , p. 222, 1 S.Ct. 240 .” (Emphasis supplied.)”
6 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.