Sonfield v. Thompson’s Empirical Analysis
1883
Citation profile
6 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently December 1946
6 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.
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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The definition of a directory, as distinct from a mandatory, provision in a statute is that it enjoins something which it is the duty of the officer or person to perform, and for willful neglect of which he may be held liable in damages to any one injured, but the failure to do which does not have the effect of invalidating the act.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Horton v. Gillespie
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.