Wheat v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1887
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 77 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 79 later decisions — most recently November 2011 · most notably First National Bank of DeWitt v. Cruthis (2005), State ex rel. Mullen v. Doherty (1897)
1 federal appellate · 77 state decisions — followed in 12 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 Ex parte Smith
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 79 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““There is no presumption that the voters 'know the date fixed by the writ of election, and they must be informed of it, but the established rule is that the particular form and manner pointed out by the statute for giving notice is not essential. Actual notice to the great body of electors is sufficient. The question in such cases is, whether the want of the statutory notice has resulted in depriving sufficient of the electors of the opportunity to exercise their franchise, to change the result of the election.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage“The voice of the people is not to be rejected for a defect or want of notice, if they have in truth been called upon and have spoken.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“Elections are not to be lightly set aside, though the law has not been strictly complied with.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Webb v. Bowden
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.