John Voorhees v. James Jackson’s Empirical Analysis
35 U.S. 449 · 1836
Citation profile
47 federal appellate · 10 district · 112 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 271 later decisions (46 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Heck v. Humphrey (1994), Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co. (1923)
47 federal appellate · 10 district · 112 state decisions — followed in 35 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 Julia Thompson Tenant v. Alice Tolmie · The Bank of Hamilton v. The Lessee of Ambrose Dudley Jun · Griffith v. Frazier · Kempe's Lessee v. Kennedy
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 271 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“'every act of a court of competent jurisdiction shall be presumed to have been rightly done, till the contrary appears.'”
11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“'want of jurisdiction, the proceedings are void and a mere nullity, and confer no right ... and may be rejected when collaterally drawn into question.'”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““The line which separates error in judgmént from the. usurpation of power is very definite; and is precisely that which denotes the' cases where a judgment or decree is reversible only by an appellate court, or may be declared a nullity collaterally when it is offered in evidence in an action concerning the matter adjudicated, or purporting to have been so. In the one case, it is a record importing absolute verity; in the other, mere waste paper. There can be no middle character assigned to judicial proceedings which are irreversible for error. Such is their effect between the parties t.o the suit; and such áre the immunities which the law affords to a plaintiff who has obtained an erroneous judgment or execution. It would be a well-merited reproach to bur jurisprudence if an innocent purchaser, no party to the suit, who had paid his money on the faith of an order of a= courts should not have the same protection under an erroneous proceeding as the party who derived the benefit accruing from it.””
2 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.