Atkinson v. White’s Empirical Analysis
1872
Citation profile
5 federal appellate · 2 district · 14 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 25 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 1983 · most notably Blonder-Tongue Laboratories, Inc. v. University of Illinois Foundation (1971), 19 Cal. 2d 807 - Bernhard v. Bank of America National Trust & Saving Association (1942)
5 federal appellate · 2 district · 14 state decisions — followed in 13 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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““That the question Involved in each suit is precisely the same, and to be proved by the same testimony is beyond a doubt. It is equally clear that the plaintiff is the same, and that he has had his day in court. He has had a full hearing upon the law and fact involved in the very question he now proposes to try again in another suit. He has had every privilege the law allows him, unless he is entitled to another hearing, simply because he is now attempting to enforce his claim against another defendant in name, but the same in interest. “Ordinarily judgments have been held conclusive only between parties and their privies, and only when both parties are bound. But this rule is subject to exceptions; as in the case of an alleged trespass by two persons, when one acts as servant of the other, and by his command. Such persons are not privies, and yet, if the plaintiff fails in his action against one, he is precluded by that judgment from maintaining an action for the same trespass against the other.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage““To permit a person to commence an action against the principal and to prove the acts alleged to be trespasses, to have been committed by his servant acting by his order, and to fail upon the merits to recover, and subsequently to commence an action against that servant and to prove and rely upon the same acts as a trespass, is to allow him to have two trials for the same cause of action, to be proved by the same testimony. In such cases the technical rule that a judgment can only be admitted between the parties to the record or their privies expands so far as to admit it, when the same question has been decided and judgment rendered between parties responsible for the acts of others.””
1 later decision 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.