Willcox v. Stroup’s Empirical Analysis
467 F.3d 409 · 2006
Citation profile
1 district · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently May 2025
1 district · 4 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.
Appellate journey
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 158 · 44 U.S.C. § 2112 · 44 U.S.C. § 2201
Relies on O'KEEFFE v. Snyder · Ricard v. Williams · Sabariego v. Maverick · Bradshaw v. Ashley · East Tennessee Natural Gas Co. v. Sage
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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The presumption of ownership from possession locates the parties’ burdens. Where the party not in possession is able to establish superior title by satisfactory evidence, the presumption gives way in favor of this evidence. But where no such evidence is produced, where, as here, the events at issue are impossible to reconstruct, the presumption recognizes and averts the possibility of a court’s presiding over a historical goose chase.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The exceptional nature of the [items] in dispute—their early vintage, their unknown'history—presents issues distinct from those of the typical personal property case. Without the benefit of clear chain of title, evidence of original ownership, eyewitness testimony, and any number of documentary aids usually helpful in the determination of ownership, the court must utilize the legal tools that remain at its disposal. In this situation, tenets of the common law that usually remain in the background of ownership determinations come to the forefront, their logic and utility revealed anew.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“If the State were not required to defeat the presumption [of ownership in the possessor] in order to gain title, a whole system of archival practice could be thrown into question. The State could claim ownership of papers of Governors Pickens and Bonham held by the Library of Congress and Duke University. . . . The result would be immense litigation over papers held by private owners, universities, historical societies, and federal depositories. It would upset settled archival arrangements and the expectations of institutions and historical scholars alike.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Adams v. Maine
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.