Johnson v. Brown’s Empirical Analysis
1879
Citation profile
33 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 34 later decisions — most recently October 1981 · most notably Josephine Throckmorton v. Washington Holt (1901), Scott v. Townsend (1914)
33 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 34 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““not, of themselves, as proof sufficient to overcome the testimony of the subscribing witnesses, but as a circumstance, in a case of this character, proper for the consideration of the jury in connection with all the other facts and circumstances in evidence; that they are not so much declarations disparaging a duly executed will, as evidence of an independent collateral fact, the state of feeling between the parties, and which would, in some degree, tend to prove the issue before the court.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““Mr. Justice Bell, in the elaborate case of Boon v. Weathered, 23 Tex., 686 , adopts as the correct rule in such examinations, that the only proper questions to be put to the witness are those laid down in the formula of Mr. Swift, in his work on Evidence, as being less objectionable than any others to which his attention had been called. These are: Whether he knows the general character or reputation of the witness intended to be impeached in point of truth among his neighbors? If so, then what that character is, whether good or bad? “We think the proper practice should be, that, after the impeaching witness has, prima facie, thus first qualified himself to speak of the general reputation of the other witness, (this to be decided by the court,) then, before he answers the question as to what that reputation is, the opposite party, if he demands it, should have the right to cross-examine as to his means of knowledge; . * * * ””
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.