Commonwealth v. Starr’s Empirical Analysis
1995
Citation profile
180 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 182 later decisions — most recently June 2022 · most notably Riccio v. American Republic Insurance (1997), Commonwealth v. Spotz (2011)
180 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 Johnson v. Zerbst · Faretta v. California · Illinois v. Allen · Drope v. Missouri · Christianson v. Colt Industries Operating Corp.
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 182 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Among the related but distinct rules which make up the law of the case doctrine are that: (1) upon remand for further proceedings, a trial court may not alter the resolution of a legal question previously decided by the appellate court in the matter; (2) upon a second appeal, an appellate court may not alter the resolution of a legal question previously decided by the same appellate court; and (3) upon transfer of a matter between trial judges of coordinate jurisdiction, the transferee trial court may not alter the resolution of a legal question previously decided by the transferor trial court.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(1) to protect the settled expectations of the parties; (2) to insure uniformity of decisions; (3) to maintain consistency during the course of a single case; (4) to effectuate the proper and streamlined administration of justice; and (5) to bring litigation to an end.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“is allowed only in exceptional circumstances!,] such as where there has been an intervening change in the controlling law, a substantial change in the facts or evidence giving rise to the dispute in the matter, or where the prior holding was clearly erroneous and would create a manifest injustice if followed.”
2 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.