Smiths v. Shoemaker’s Empirical Analysis
84 U.S. 630 · 1873
Citation profile
44 federal appellate · 22 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 78 later decisions (5 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 1991 · most notably Crawford v. United States (1909), Vicksburg v. O'Brien (1886)
44 federal appellate · 22 state decisions — followed in 14 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 78 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““We repeat the doctrine of this court laid down in Deery v. Gray, 5 Wall. 795 , that while it is a sound principle that no judgment should be reversed on error, when the error complained of worked no injury to the party against whom tlie ruling was made, it must appear so clear as to be beyond doubt that the error did not and could not have prejudiced the rights of the party. The case must be such that this court is not called on to decide upon the preponderance of the evidence that the verdict was right, notwithstanding the error complained oí.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“"It must appear so clear as to be beyond doubt that the error did not and could not have prejudiced the right of the party. The case must be such that this court is not called on to decide upon the preponderance of evidence that the verdict was right, notwithstanding the error complained of.””
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.