Ward v. Williams’s Empirical Analysis
2003
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 56 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 61 later decisions — most recently November 2025 · most notably Bank of the Ozarks Inc. v. Walker (2014), Reynolds Health Care Services, Inc. v. HMNH, Inc. (2005)
2 federal appellate · 56 state decisions
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 Crain Industries, Inc. v. Cass · Williamson v. Sanofi Winthrop Pharmaceuticals, Inc. · Woodall v. Chuck Dory Auto Sales, Inc. · Clemmons v. Office of Child Support Enforcement · Burnette v. Perkins & Associates
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 61 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“further held that while a decision will not be disturbed because it is law of the case, we are not bound by a conclusion stated as obiter dictum, even if couched in terms that imply the court reached a conclusion on a matter. Where discussion or comment in an opinion is not necessary to the decision reached therein, the discussion or comment is obiter dictum.”
1 later decision 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.