Averill v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
84 U.S. 82 · 1872
Citation profile
9 federal appellate · 3 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 28 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2000 · most notably McGuire v. United States (1927), States Marine Lines, Inc. v. Shultz (1974)
9 federal appellate · 3 district · 1 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.
Relationships
Relies on Union Bank of Georgetown v. Smith · Doolittle v. Blakesley · Waterbury v. Lockwood · Inhabitants of the Town of Waterbury v. Clark
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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Proof of probable cause, if shown by the certificate of the District Court which rendered the decree discharging the property, is a good defense to an action of trespass brought by the claimant against the collector who made the executive seizure, provided it appears that judicial proceedings were instituted, and that the charge against the property was prosecuted to a final judicial determination. Where the respondent prevails in such an information, the court, says Mr. Parsons, gives to the prosecuting or seizing officers a certificate of probable cause, if in their judgment he had such cause for the seizure, and that, he says, protects the officer who made the seizure from prosecution for making the same; and he adds that the final decree of the court in a case of forfeiture regularly before the court is conclusive. * * * Probable cause, he says, means less than evidence which would justify a condemnation, and the same author says, if the court before whom the cause is tried shall cause a certificate or entry to be made that there appeared to be a reasonable cause of seizure, the, seizing officer shall be protected from all costs, suits, and actions on account of the seizure and prosecution. Differences of opinion existed for a time as to the legal meaning of the term ‘probable cause,’ but it is settled that it imports circumstances which warrant suspicion, and that a doubt resped iug the true construction of the law is as reasonable a cause of seizure as a doubt respecti”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““ * * * Inasmuch as the District Court * * * certified that there was probable cause for the seizure, the court is of opinion that trespass will not lie for that act””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Haymes v. Brown
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.