United States v. William Linn’s Empirical Analysis
40 U.S. 290 · 1841
Citation profile
7 federal appellate · 7 district · 23 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 51 later decisions (9 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2017 · most notably Kern-Limerick, Inc. v. Scurlock (1954), Moses v. United States (1897)
7 federal appellate · 7 district · 23 state decisions — followed in 15 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.
Relationships
Relies on United States v. Hodson · Miller v. Stewart · The United States v. Thomas Tingey · Dugan Clark v. The United States · Leonard v. Vredenburgh
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 51 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““We hold that a voluntary bond taken by authority of the proper officers of the Treasury Department, to whom the disbursement of public moneys is entrusted, to secure the fidelity in official duties of a receiver or an agent for disbursery of public moneys, is a binding contract between him and his sureties, and the United States; although such bond may not be prescribed or required by any positive law. The right to take such a bond is in our view an incident to the duties belonging to such a department; and the United States having a political capacity to take it, we see no objection to its validity in a moral or a legal view.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage““It is the duty of all public officers intrusted with the execution of powers delegated to them, to pursue the directions of the law conferring the power. But to construe all such laws as a special delegation of authority, to be strictly and literally pursued, and to consider every departure from it as done without authority and absolutely void, would frequently he defeating the very object and purpose for which the law is made, and ought not to receive such a construction, unless the statute itself declares all such acts void."”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“The emoluments of the office were the considerations allowed him for the execution of the duties of his office; and his appointment and commission entitled him to receive this compensation, whether he gave any security or not. His official rights and duties attached upon his appointment.”
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.