Smith v. Shelden’s Empirical Analysis
1876
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 1 district · 41 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 47 later decisions — most recently March 1947 · most notably Dibert v. D'Arcy (1913), Union Mut Life Ins Co v. Hanford
2 federal appellate · 1 district · 41 state decisions — followed in 15 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.
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 47 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Now, a surety, as we understand it, is a person who, being liable to pay a debt or perform an obligation, is entitled, if it is enforced against him, to be indemnified by some other person, who ought himself to have made payment or performed before the surety was compelled to do so. It is immaterial in what form the relation of principal and surety .is established, or whether the creditor is or is not contracted with in the two capacities, as is often the case where notes are given or bonds taken.””
2 later decisions 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.