Charles Williamson and Catharine His Wife v. Joseph Berry’s Empirical Analysis
49 U.S. 495 · 1850
Citation profile
69 federal appellate · 12 district · 58 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 215 later decisions (15 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2015 · most notably Erie Co v. Tompkins (1938), Kalb v. Feuerstein (1940)
69 federal appellate · 12 district · 58 state decisions — followed in 25 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.
Relationships
Relies on De La Fayette Wilcox v. John Jackson · Thatcher v. Powell · Rose v. Himely · Williams v. Peyton's Lessee
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 215 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“`[S]ale' is a word of precise legal import, both at law and in equity. It means, at all times, a contract between parties, to give and to pass rights of property for money — which the buyer pays or promises to pay the seller for the thing bought and sold.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““And in no event could a sale by Clarke, in conformity with the order, have been a judicial sale, but simply a sale by a private individual authorized to make it under acts passed for his relief, and assented to by the Chancellor, for the purpose of ultimately substantiating and verifying by a court of record the transfer of the property. It was a sale made without process, not by an officer in any sense of the word, but by a private person to a private person, after negotiation between them, and done by one of them, who had only in a particular way the assent of the Chancellor to sell.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Kohn v. Dahlem““Where a court has jurisdiction, it has a right to decide every question which occurs in the cause; and, whether its decision he correct or otherwise, its judgment, until reversed, is regarded as binding in every other court. But, if it acts without authority, its judgments and orders are regarded as nullities. They are not voidable, but simply void, and form no bar to a recovery sought even prior to a reversal in opposition to them. They constitute no justification, and all persons concerned in executing such judgments or sentences are considered in law as trespassers.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Dexter v. Sayward
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.