Maxwell v. Griswold’s Empirical Analysis
51 U.S. 242 · 1850
Citation profile
7 federal appellate · 2 district · 14 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 48 later decisions (7 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2019 · most notably Altvater v. Freeman (1943), United States v. Conrad Heinszen C (1907)
7 federal appellate · 2 district · 14 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 United States v. Heth · Thatcher v. Powell · Williams v. Peyton's Lessee · The Marianna Flora · Daviess v. Fairbairn
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 48 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““But this addition and consequent payment of the higher duties were so far from voluntary in him that he accompanied them with remonstrances against being thus coerced to do the act iu order to escape a greater evil, and accompanied the payment with a protest against the legality of the course pursued towards him. Now, it can hardly be meant, in this class of cases, that, to make a payment involuntary, it should be by actual violence or any physical duress. It suffices if the payment is caused on the one part by an illegal demand. and made on the other part reluctantly and in consequence of that illegality, and without being able to regain possession of his property except by submitting to the payment. All these requisites existed here. We have already decided that the demand for such an increased appraisal was illegal. The appraisal itself, as made, was illegal. The raising of the invoice was thus caused by these illegalities in order to escape a greater burden in the penalty, fhe payment of the increased duties thus caused was wrongfully imposed on tlu; importer, and was submitted to merely as a choice of evils. He was unwilling to pay either ihe excess of duties or the penalty, and must be considered, therefore, as forced into one or the other by the collector, colore officii, through the invalid and illegal course pursued in having the appraisal made of the value at the wrong period, however well meant may have been the views of the collector. The money was thus obtained ”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.