Secretary v. McGarrahan’s Empirical Analysis
76 U.S. 298 · 1869
Citation profile
25 federal appellate · 2 district · 25 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 96 later decisions (16 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2018 · most notably In re Ayers (1887), Noble v. Union River Logging Railroad (1893)
25 federal appellate · 2 district · 25 state decisions — followed in 15 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 96 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"Discussion of the principle, however, seems to be unnecessary, as all of the cases appear to affirm the same rule, that the writ cannot issue where discretion and judgment are to be exercised by the officer, and only in cases where the act required to be done is merely ministerial, and where the relator is without any other adequate remedy."”
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.