36 Cal. 2d 125 - Simpson v. Hite’s Empirical Analysis
1950
Citation profile
125 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 125 later decisions — most recently August 2020 · most notably 18 Cal. 3d 582 - Associated Home Builders of Greater Eastbay, Inc. v. City of Livermore (1976), 17 Cal. 3d 129 - Birkenfeld v. City of Berkeley (1976)
125 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 31 Cal. 2d 66 - Johnston v. Board of Supervisors · Hurst v. City of Burlingame · Hopping v. Council of City of Richmond · 34 Cal. 2d 614 - Essick v. City of Los Angeles · 31 Cal. 2d 619 - Hunt v. Mayor & Council of Riverside
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 125 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“* * * referendum provisions of the constitution and of charters and statutes should, as a general rule, be liberally construed in favor of the reserved power. * * * As opposed to that principle, however, `in examining and ascertaining the intention of the people with respect to the scope and nature of those powers, it is proper and important to consider what the consequences of applying it to a particular act of legislation would be, and if upon such consideration it be found that by so applying it the inevitable effect would be greatly to impair or wholly destroy the efficacy of some other governmental power, the practical application of which is essential, and perhaps, * * * indispensable, to the convenience, comfort, and well-being of the inhabitants of certain legally established districts or subdivisions of the state or of the whole state, then in such case the courts may and should assume that the people intended no such result to flow from the application of those powers and that they do not so apply.'”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage““ ‘It has been recognized from an early date in the history of the state that in the exercise of their functions under particular statutes “the board of supervisors is a special tribunal, with mixed powers—administrative, legislative and judicial” . . .’ Where a series of acts by a board are all directed to the end of cariying out a duty imposed on the board by the law of the state, and where it is sought by a citizens’ committee of the county to interrupt the process through repeal by the initiative of one or more of the steps theretofore taken by the board, the acts sought to be repealed are to be judged, as legislative or administrative, not as isolated acts but in their true relationship as a part of the entire project. “If the selection of sites of courts buildings were subject to referendum, the electors could nullify every determination of the board of supervisors to erect buildings for the courts and thereby nullify the legislative policy and prevent execution of the duty imposed upon the board of supervisors. Furthermore, a small group, or various small groups, of electors, by repeated initiative proposals for a change of site, could interfere with the supervisors’ attempts to furnish quarters for the courts at any time, even when the period for referendum had passed. Thus, such small group or groups of electors could not merely place the board of supervisors in a strait jacket. . . but could interfere with the functioning of the courts by depriving them of the quart”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“in none of those cases was the court purporting to deal with a situation such as the one at bar, where the legislative policy has been expressly fixed by the state itself, and the execution of that policy has been specifically imposed by the state law on the board of supervisors as an administrative function.”
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.