Hughes v. Van Bruggen’s Empirical Analysis
1940
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 2 district · 36 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 40 later decisions — most recently December 2003 · most notably Zenik v. O'BRIEN (1951), Weststar Mortgage Corp. v. Jackson (2002)
2 federal appellate · 2 district · 36 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 Williams v. Frey · People v. Horn · Long v. State · State v. Fraker · Cox v. Lauritsen
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 40 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““If we are to have prosecutions of law violations only at the very great hazard of unreasonably subjecting the complaining witness to the expensive ordeal and uncertain results of suits for damages if convictions not be obtained, we then approve a rule which thwarts justice upon the very threshold of its entrance. New men would take the chance and invite such a suit, even though they would otherwise be boldened to advocate and uphold law and order. Their attitude could very properly be, ‘let the other fellow do it.’ The policy of the law is not, as it should not be, unreasonably to deter those who know of breaches of the law from complaining against the offenders.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““Plaintiff confuses the word ‘advice’ with the word ‘instruction’. There is a distinction between the two words. ‘Advice’ means legal counsel. Instructions and Directions are synonymous. (See English’s Law Dictionary.) To ‘instruct’ carries an implication that it is to be obeyed, while ‘advice’ means it is optional with the person addressed whether he will act on such advice or not. See State v. Downing, 23 Idaho 540 , 130 P. 461 .””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““In order to charge a private person with responsibility for the initiating of proceedings by a public official, it must therefore appear that his desire to have the proceedings initiated expressed by direction, request, or pressure of any kind was the determining factor in the official’s decision to commence the prosecution or that the information furnished by him upon which the official acted was known to be false.””
2 later decisions 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.