Powers v. Harlow’s Empirical Analysis
1884
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 106 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 115 later decisions — most recently July 2018 · most notably Union Pac Ry Co v. McDonald (1894), McDermott v. Severe (1906)
6 federal appellate · 106 state decisions — followed in 37 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 Railroad Company v. Stout · Hunt v. Rousmanier's Administrators · Bennett v. Railroad Co. · Illinois Central Railroad v. Godfrey · Kefee v. Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Co.
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 115 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Children, wherever they go, must be expected to act upon childish instincts and impulses; and others who are chargeable with a duty of care and caution towards them must calculate upon this, and take precautions accordingly.””
5 later decisions 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.