De Sylva v. Ballentine’s Empirical Analysis
1956
Citation profile
455 federal appellate · 41 district · 81 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,026 later decisions (54 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2025 · most notably United States 77-1359 v. Kimbell Foods Inc (1979), International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America v. Hoosier Cardinal Corp. (1966)
455 federal appellate · 41 district · 81 state decisions — followed in 19 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
reviewedMarie Ballentine, as Guardian of the Estate of Stephen William Ballentine v. Marie De Sylva, Marie De Sylva v. Marie Ballentine, as Guardian of the Estate of Stephen William Ballentine (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Clearfield Trust Co. v. United States · Mazer v. Stein · Board of Com'rs of Jackson County Kan v. United States · United States v. Standard Oil Co. · Heiser v. Woodruff
Cited together with Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. · Reconstruction Finance Corp. v. Beaver County · Erie Co v. Tompkins · Clearfield Trust Co. v. United States · Fred Fisher Music Co. v. M. Witmark & Sons
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 1,026 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“scope of a federal right is, of course, a federal question, ... that does not mean that its content is not to be determined by state, rather than federal law.”
29 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Burks v. Lasker · Sears v. Austin“[t]o decide who is the widow or widower of a deceased author, or who are his executors or next of kin,”
11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“the word 'or' is often used as a careless substitute for the word 'and'; that is, it is often used in phrases where 'and' would express the thought with greater clarity”
9 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.