Adkins v. E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Co.’s Empirical Analysis
335 U.S. 331 · 1948
Citation profile
290 federal appellate · 83 district · 121 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 935 later decisions (23 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2025 · most notably Neitzke v. Williams (1989), Denton v. Hernandez (1992)
290 federal appellate · 83 district · 121 state decisions — followed in 24 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
reviewedthe decision below (from Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Ex Parte Barber · Maty v. Grasselli Chemical Co. · Hoiness v. United States · Kinney v. Plymouth Rock Squab Co.
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 935 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“We cannot agree with the court below that one must be absolutely destitute to enjoy the benefit of the statute. We think an affidavit is sufficient which states that one cannot because of his poverty “pay or give security for the costs ... and still be able to provide” himself and dependents “with the necessities of life.” To say that no persons are entitled to the statute’s benefits until they have sworn to contribute to payment of costs, the last dollar they have or can get, and thus make themselves and their dependents wholly destitute, would be to construe the statute in a way that would throw its beneficiaries into the category of public charges. The public would not be profited if relieved of paying costs of a particular litigation only to have imposed on it the expense of supporting the person thereby made an object of public support. Nor does the result seem more desirable if the effect of this statutory interpretation is to force a litigant to abandon what may be a meritorious claim in order to spare himself complete destitution. We think a construction of the statute achieving such consequences is an inadmissible one.”
34 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“no citizen sh[ould] be denied an opportunity to commence, prosecute, or defend an action, civil or criminal, in any court of the United States, solely because his poverty makes it impossible for him to pay or secure the costs.”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“few more appropriate occasions for use of a court's discretion than one in which a litigant [asks] that the public pay costs of his litigation ...”
4 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.