Smith v. Lyon’s Empirical Analysis
1876
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 1 district · 18 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 21 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2005
1 federal appellate · 1 district · 18 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 21 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Nor are we willing to overthrow a rule so firmly founded in justice upon the plaintiff’s suggestion as to the word ‘maintained;’ for we do not think that, as used in the act, it in itself imports retroactive intent on the part of the legislature. A critical analysis of it would doubtless disclose the idea of continuing a life already commenced; but men both in and out of the profession often speak of maintaining an action, having reference to one yet to be instituted.””
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.