Williamson v. Suydam’s Empirical Analysis
73 U.S. 723 · 1867
Citation profile
2 district · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 13 later decisions (4 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 1936
2 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 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The rights of the trustees were not invaded, as they asked to be discharged; and the cestuis que trustent cannot complain, for the reason that the substitution of a new trustee did not defeat or impair the trust, or divest their interest. But the true answer to the proposition is, that there is no matter of contract involved in the substitution of new trustees with the assent of the Chancellor, in place of those named in a testamentary devise, unless the act be one which infringes some vested right of the trustees.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“Second question presented by the plaintiff is that the discharge of the trustees named in the will by the legislature of the state, was in contravention of that clause of the constitution of the United States which declares that no state shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts.”
1 later decision 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.