Cowles v. Mercer County’s Empirical Analysis
74 U.S. 118 · 1868
Citation profile
51 federal appellate · 21 district · 10 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 177 later decisions (25 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2014 · most notably Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York (1978), City of Oklahoma City v. Tuttle (1985)
51 federal appellate · 21 district · 10 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 177 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““But it was argued that counties in Illinois, by the law of their organization, were exempted from suit elsewhere than in the circuit courts of the county; and this seems to be the construction given to the statutes concerning counties by the supreme court of Illinois. But that court has never decided that a county in Illinois is exempted from liability to suit in national courts. It is unnecessary, therefore, to consider what Avould be the effect of such a decision. It is enough for this case that we find the board of supervisors to be a corporation authorized to contract for the county. The power to contract with citizens of other states implies liability to suit by citizens of other states, and no statute limitation of suability can defeat’ a jurisdiction given by the constitution. We cannot doubt the constitutional right of the defendant in error to bring suit in the circuit court of the United States upon the obligations of the county of Mercer against the plaintiff in error. And Ave find no error in the judgment of that court. It must therefore be affirmed.””
5 later decisions 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.