State ex rel. Lamb v. Cunningham’s Empirical Analysis
1892
Citation profile
1 district · 63 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 72 later decisions — most recently December 2023 · most notably Ellingham v. Dye (1912), State ex rel. Bolens v. Frear (1912)
1 district · 63 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 Lake County v. Rollins · Attorney General v. Chicago & Northwestern Railway Co. · Gordon v. United States · State ex rel. Attorney General v. Cunningam · Attorney General v. City of Eau Claire
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 72 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"It will be observed that the section quoted speaks of `ward lines,' but contains no other reference to cities. From this it is manifest that the framers of the constitution, even at that early day, contemplated that the necessity was likely to arise for dividing up cities by ward lines in the formation of assembly districts, and thus allow smaller factors to enter into the formation of such districts, and to that extent facilitate the equality of representation."”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“If, as in this case, there is such a wide and bold departure from this constitutional rule that it cannot possibly be justified by the exercise of any judgment or discretion, and that evinces an intention on the part of the legislature to utterly ignore and disregard the rule of the constitution in order to promote some other object than a constitutional apportionment, then the conclusion is inevitable that the legislature did not use any judgment or discretion whatever.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Preisler v. Doherty“and made at the next session after the state or United States enumeration; and the enumeration is evidently intended as the basis of apportionment . The court will take judicial knowledge of the location, general boundaries, and the juxtaposition of the several counties, towns, and wards mentioned in the act in question, and of matters of common knowledge.' . . .”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. (1971)
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.