Williams v. Baker’s Empirical Analysis
84 U.S. 144 · 1872
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 34 later decisions (14 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2012 · most notably United States v. Midwest Oil Co. (1915), United States v. Des Moines Navigation & Railway Co. (1892)
4 federal appellate · 2 state decisions
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 34 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““ That any and- all lands heretofore reserved to the United States, by any act -of Congress, or in any' other manner by competent authority, for the purpose of aiding in any object of internal improvement, or for any other purpose whatsoever, be, and the same are hereby, reserved to the United States from the operation of this act, except so far as it may be found necessary to locate the routes of said railroads through such reserved lands, in which case the right of way only shall be granted, subject to the approval of the President ot the United States.” 11 Stat. 9 .”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““It is therefore no longer an open question that neither the state of Iowa, nor the railroad companies for whose benefit the grant of 1856 was made, took any title by that act to the lands then claimed to belong to the Des Moines river grant of 1846, and that the joint resolution of 2d of March, 1861, and act of 12th of Juty, 1862, transferred, the title from the United Slates, and vested it in the state of Iowa for the use of its grantees under the river grant. ””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“This decision was received as a final settlement of the long contested question of the extent of the grant. But it left the State Of Iowa, which had made engagements on the faith of the lands certified to her, in an embarrassed condition, and it destroyed the title of the navigation company to lands of the value of hundreds of thousands, of dollars, which it had received from the State for money, labor and material actually expended and furnished. What was also equally to be regretted was, that many persons, purchasers for value from the State or the navigation company, found their supposed title an invalid one.”
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.