Frost v. Ilsley’s Empirical Analysis
1867
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 11 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently June 1979
1 federal appellate · 11 state decisions — followed in 10 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.
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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The lien is the creature of the statute. It is not part of the contract, but a merely incidental accompaniment, deriving its validity only from positive enactment and liable always to be controlled, modified or taken away by subsequent enactment, and such modification or removal cannot be considered as in any degree impairing the obligation of the contract itself. The lien is but a means of enforcing the contract, a remedy given by law, and like all matters pertaining to the remedy, and not to the essence of the contract, until perfected by proceedings whereby rights in the property over which the lien is claimed have become vested, it is entirely within the control of the lawmaking power, in whose edict it originated. Id. at 351. (emphasis supplied).”
1 later decision 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.