Wright v. Paine’s Empirical Analysis
1878
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 20 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 24 later decisions — most recently January 1988
3 federal appellate · 20 state decisions — followed in 12 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 Commercial Bank v. Hughes · Martin v. Black's Ex'rs · Wray v. Tuskegee Insurance · Owen v. Henderson · Kimbro v. Waller
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 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““It would be a dangerous precedent; it would endanger the estates of the dead; it would render the rights of the living uncertain and insecure; it would open the door for the introduction of stale claims, which it has been well said, have often more of cruelty than justice in them; and it would be violative of the policy of the statute of limitations, and defeat the purposes it was intended to accomplish, if without an explanation of the long delay in making demand, and the unwarrantable delay in bringing suit, after the fruitless demand, until Winston was dead, the statute was held not a bar.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Southward v. Foy““When a demand is essential, as a condition precedent to an action, it must be made in a reasonable time. The party bound to make it, can not postpone it indefinitely, and by his procrastination keep alive claims that would otherwise become dormant, and grow stale, the enforcement of which would be offensive to the policy of the law and dangerous to the rights of his adversary.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Southward v. Foy
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.