Commonwealth v. Gordon’s Empirical Analysis
1986
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 40 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 42 later decisions — most recently May 2018 · most notably Mutual Benefit Insurance v. Haver (1999), Commonwealth v. Booth (2001)
2 federal appellate · 40 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 Lehigh Valley Cooperative Farmers v. Commonwealth, Bureau of Employment Security Department of Labor & Industry · Zimmerman v. O'BANNON · Commonwealth v. Hill · Commonwealth v. Duncan
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 42 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Our analysis of the entire Act compels the conclusion that the Legislature did not intend that an individual could, by obtaining a license as a pharmacist, then engage in conduct far from the trappings of the pharmacy and its business, which amounts to no more than an illicit, clandestine, street transaction, and then use the license as a shield to avoid prosecution for such conduct. ... Our reading of the Act convinces us that the separate systems [for regulating practitioners versus non-practitioners] are distinguished according to the nature of the transaction and the status of the individual involved. ... When a licensed pharmacist acts like a street pusher, he is not a “practitioner” and can be prosecuted under §§ 780-113(a)(16) and (30).”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“(30) Except as authorized by this act, the manufacture, delivery, or possession with intent to manufacture or deliver, a controlled substance by a person not registered under this act, or a practitioner not registered or licensed by the appropriate State board, or knowingly creating, delivering or possessing with intent to deliver, a counterfeit controlled substance.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.