The United States v. Lawrence Coombs’s Empirical Analysis
37 U.S. 72 · 1838
Citation profile
19 federal appellate · 19 district · 12 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 125 later decisions (25 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2025 · most notably United States v. Lopez (1995), United States v. Chemical Foundation, Inc. (1926)
19 federal appellate · 19 district · 12 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 The American Insurance Company v. 356 Bales of Cotton David Canter
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.
““And again, if the section admits of two interpretations, one of which brings it within, and the other presses it beyond the constitutional authority of Congress, it will become our duty to adopt the former construction; because a presumption never ought to be indulged, that Congress meant to exercise or usurp any unconstitutional authority, unless that conclusion is forced upon the court by language altogether unambiguous.””
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““It [commercial power of Congress] floes not stop at the mere boundary line of a state; nor is it confined to acts done on the water, or in the necessary course of the navigation thereof. It extends to such acts done on land which interfere with, obstruct, or prevent the due exercise of the power to regulate commerce and navigation with foreign nations and among the states. Any offense which thus interferes with, obstructs, or prevents such commerce and navigation, though done on land, may be punished by Congress under its general authority to make all laws necessary and proper to execute their delegated constitutional powers. No one can doubt that the various offenses enumerated in the tenth section of the Act are all of a nature which tend essentially to obstruct, prevent, or destroy the due operation of commerce' and navigation with foreign nations and among the several states.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““plunder, steal or destroy any money, goods, mercliandise, or other effects from, or belonging to, any ship or vessel, * * * which shall be in distress, or which shall be wrecked, lost, stranded or cast away, upon the sea, or upon any reef, shoal, bank, or rocks of the sea, or in any place within the admiralty or maritime jurisdiction of the United States.””
1 later decision 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.