Davis v. Gray’s Empirical Analysis
83 U.S. 203 · 1872
Citation profile
115 federal appellate · 43 district · 94 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 501 later decisions (91 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Ex Parte: Edward T Young (1908), Will v. Michigan Department of State Police (1989)
115 federal appellate · 43 district · 94 state decisions — followed in 27 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.
Relationships
Relies on Jefferson Branch Bank v. Skelly
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 501 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““A receiver is appointed upon a principle of juslice for the benefit of all concerned. Every kind of property of such a nature that, if legal, it might be taken in execution, may, if equitable, be put into his possession. Hence the appointment has been said to be an equitable execution. He is virtually a representative of the court, and of all the parties in interest in the litigation wherein he is appointed. He is required to take possession of the property as directed, because it is deemed more for the interests of justice that he should do so than that the property should be in the possession of either of the parties in the litigation. He is not appointed for the benefit of either of the parties, but of all concerned. Money or property in his hands is in custodia legis. He has only such power and authority as are given Mm by the court, and must not exceed the prescribed limits. The court will not allow him to be sued touching the property in his charge, nor for any malfeasance as to the parties, or others, without its consent; nor will it permit Ms possession to be disturbed by force, nor violence to be offered to his person while in the discharge of Ms official duties.””
20 later decisions quote this exact passage““A party by going into a national court does not lose any right or appropriate remedy of which he might have availed himself in the state courts of the same locality. The wise policy of the Constitution gives him a choice of tribunals.” ,”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“It is the peculiar function of a court of equity in a case like this to avert such results”
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.