Chapman v. Forsyth’s Empirical Analysis
43 U.S. 202 · 1844
Citation profile
36 federal appellate · 26 district · 55 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 362 later decisions (12 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2019 · most notably Davis v. Aetna Acceptance Co. (1934), Neal v. Clark (1877)
36 federal appellate · 26 district · 55 state decisions — followed in 22 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.
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 362 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“If the act embrace such a debt, it will be difficult to limit its application. It must include all debts arising from agencies; and indeed all cases where the law implies an obligation from the trust reposed in the debtor. Such a construction would have left but few debts on which the law could operate. In almost all the commercial transactions of the country, confidence is reposed in the punctuality and integrity of the debtor, and a violation of these is, in a commercial sense, a disregard of a trust. But this is not the relation spoken of in the first section of the act.”
54 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““all persons whatsoever, residing in any state, territory, or district of the United States, owing debts which shall not have been created in consequence of a defalcation as a public officer, or as executor, administrator, guardian, or trustee, or while acting in any other fiduciary capacity,” shall, on a compliance with the requisites of the bankrupt law, be entitled to a discharge under it.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Upshur v. Briscoe · Neal v. Clark“Whether a commission merchant and factor, who sells for others [is] indebted in a fiduciary capacity within the act, provided he withholds the money received for property sold by him, and which property was sold on account of the owner and the money received on the owners’s account. [Chapman, 43 U.S. (2 How.) 202, 206-207 , 11 L.Ed. 236 ]”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.