McGoon v. Scales’s Empirical Analysis
76 U.S. 23 · 1869
Citation profile
34 federal appellate · 3 district · 33 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 114 later decisions (19 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2013 · most notably James v. Dravo Contracting Co. (1937), Van Brocklin v. Anderson (1886)
34 federal appellate · 3 district · 33 state decisions — followed in 19 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 114 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““It is a principle too firmly established to admit of dispute at this day that to the law of the state in which land is situated must we look for the rules which govern its descent, alienation, and transfer, and for the effect and construction of conveyances.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Willard v. Wood · Klinger v. Hyman““The doctrine of this court, and of all the courts of this country, is firmly established, that if the court in which the proceedings took place had jurisdiction to render the judgment which it did, no error in its proceedings which did not affect the jurisdiction will be considered when the judgment is brought collaterally into question.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Stokes v. Kingsbury
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.