Little v. Barreme’s Empirical Analysis
1804
Citation profile
51 federal appellate · 11 district · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 123 later decisions (21 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2026 · most notably Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman (1984), Butz v. Economou (1978)
51 federal appellate · 11 district · 4 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.
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 123 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“But I have been convinced that I was mistaken, and I have receded from this first opinion. I acquiesce in that of my brethren, which is, that the instructions cannot change the nature of the transaction, or legalize an act which without those instructions would have been a plain trespass.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“I confess the first bias of my mind was very strong in favour of ... the executive ... [b]ut I have been convinced that I was mistaken.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Zivotofsky v. Kerry“take care that the laws be faithfully executed,”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. In re Neagle
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.