Reese v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
76 U.S. 13 · 1869
Citation profile
75 federal appellate · 11 district · 62 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 199 later decisions (8 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2017 · most notably Prairie State Nat Bank of Chicago v. United States (1896), United States v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co. (1915)
75 federal appellate · 11 district · 62 state decisions — followed in 20 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 199 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Any change In the contract on which they are sureties, made by the principal parties to it without their assent, discharges them, and for obvious reasons. When the change is made they are not bound by the contract in its altered form, for to that they have never assented. Nor does it matter how trivial the change, or even that it may be of advantage to the sureties. They have a right to stand upon the very terms of their undertaking.””
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]here is also an implied covenant on the part of the government, when the recognizance of bail is accepted, that it will not in any way interfere with th[e] covenant between [the principal and his sureties], or impair its obligation, or take any proceedings with the principal which will increase the risks of the sureties or affect their remedy against him.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“By recognizance the principal is, in the theory of the law, committed to the custody of the sureties as to jailers of his own choosing, not that he is, in point of fact, in this country at least, subjected or can be subjected by them to constant imprisonment; but he is so far placed in their power that they may at any time arrest him upon the recognizance and surrender him to the court and, to the extent necessary to accomplish this, may restrain him of his liberty.”
2 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.