Dodge v. Woolsey’s Empirical Analysis
59 U.S. 331 · 1855
Citation profile
62 federal appellate · 19 district · 86 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 343 later decisions (67 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2013 · most notably Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority (1936), Hans v. State of Louisiana (1890)
62 federal appellate · 19 district · 86 state decisions — followed in 33 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 Osborn v. President Directors and Company of the Bank of the United States · Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward · Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge · Alexander Marshall v. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company
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 343 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““A stockholder in a corporation has a remedy in chancery against the directors to prevent them from doing acts which would amount to a violation of the charter or to prevent any misapplication of their capital or profits which might lessen the value of the shares, if the acts intended to he done amount to what is called in law a breach of trust or duty.””
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““It is obvious, from tbis rule, that the circumstances of each case must determine the jurisdiction of! a court of equity to give the relief sought” — approved in Hawes v. Oakland, 104 U. S. 450 , 26 L. Ed. 827 .”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““ Now, in our view, the refusal upon the part of the directors, by their own showing, partakes more of disregard of duty, than of an error of judgment. It was a non-performance of a confessed official obligation, amounting to what the law* considers a breach of trust, though it may not involve intentional moral delinquency. It was a mistake, it is true, of what their duty required from them, according to their own sense of it, but, being a duty by their own confession, their refusal was an act outside of the obligation which the charter imposed upon them to protect what they conscientiously believed to be the franchises of the bank. A sense of duty and conduct contrary to it, is not ‘ an error of judgment merely,’ and cannot be so called in any case.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Hill v. Wallace
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.