Commonwealth v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1963
Citation profile
42 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 42 later decisions — most recently April 2022 · most notably Wm. Penn Parking Garage, Inc. v. City of Pittsburgh (1975), Commonwealth v. McKenna (1978)
42 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 Bell Appeal · Robinson Township School District v. Houghton · Commonwealth v. Dollar Savings Bank · 146 Pa. Super. 525 - Commonwealth v. Burall · Commonwealth v. Bristow
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 42 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The purpose of the overweight provision . . . is to protect the highways of the [state] from damage and to insure the safety of those traveling upon the highways [citations omitted]. The fine provision, of course, is designed to deter potential violators. It was quite evident to the . . . legislature that the $50 fine for each violation, imposed by the previous act, was not serving this function since the profits accruing from the excess loads more than compensated for the penalty inflicted. That legislature, therefore, decided to increase the amount of the fines and to graduate them according to the amount of the overweight, instead of imposing a flat rate for each violation. Such a decision was not irrational or' unreasonable, but on the contrary was quite sensible, and hence there is no merit to appellant’s contention.” (Emphasis original.)”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“"The purpose of the overweight provision[s] . . . is to protect the highways of the Commonwealth from damage and to insure the safety of those traveling upon the highways. Commonwealth v. Burall, 146 Pa.Super. 525 , 22 A.2d 619 (1941); McDonald v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 210 F.2d 524 (3d Cir. 1954). The fine provision, of course, is designed to deter potential violators." Commonwealth v. Smith, 409 Pa. 521, 525 , 187 A.2d 267, 270 (1963).”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Commonwealth v. Dunn
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.