Sylvester K. Stevens v. Helen C. Frick’s Empirical Analysis
372 F.2d 378 · 1967
Citation profile
17 federal appellate · 8 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 48 later decisions — most recently January 2016 · most notably Girard v. 94th Street & Fifth Avenue Corp. (1976), Henry v. First National Bank (1979)
17 federal appellate · 8 district · 1 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 Dombrowski v. Pfister · Shelley v. Kraemer · United States v. Price · Douglas v. City of Jeannette · City of Greenwood v. Peacock
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 48 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“By contrast (with Shelley v. Kramer), in this case no order or judgment has been entered under which the power of the state is invoked to suppress the Stevens book, nor is there any Pennsylvania statute or case which authorizes the imposition of unconstitutional restraints on freedom of the press. * * * Thus far Pennsylvania has merely provided a forum to determine the rights of the parties. Both logic and precedent suggest that merely by holding its courts open to litigation of complaints, regardless of how baseless they eventually prove to be, Pennsylvania does not clothe persons who use its judicial processes with the authority of the state. * *”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“While Shelley v. Kraemer does establish that the action of state courts may constitute state action for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment and thus may give rise to a claim under the Civil Rights Act of 1871, the state judicial action involved in Shelley is readily distinguishable from that presented here. In Shelley the state courts, following a settled line of state decisions, had enforced racially restrictive covenants in deeds. The state had thus provided “the full coercive power of government to deny to petitioners, on the grounds of race or color, the enjoyment of property rights in premises which petitioners [were] willing and financially able to acquire and which the grantors [were] willing to sell.” * * *”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Mullarkey v. Borglum
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.