Boydston v. Rockwall County’s Empirical Analysis
1893
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 42 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 44 later decisions — most recently December 1990 · most notably Williams v. Pure Oil Co. (1935), Sluder v. City of San Antonio (1928)
2 federal appellate · 42 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 44 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““A contract made in the name of a commissioners’ court by an unauthorized party may be ratified by a formal order; but such order is not neessary to such ratification. When the fact of the contract came to the knowledge of the commissioners’ court, and they elected to hold the bonds or take any other benefit under them, or to carry out its provisions, they ratified it, and the county was estopped to deny its validity. Kneeland v. Gillman, 24 Wis. 42 ; Peterson v. Mayor, 17 N. Y. 453 ; Town of Athens v. Thomas, 82 Ill. 259 ; Tyler v. Trustees, 14 Or. 485 ; Fisher v. La Rue, 15 Barb. 323 .””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““When the governing body of a municipal corporation is empowered to do an act, one purely administrative in its character, such as to make a contract, and to appoint an agent for that purpose, it may ratify such act when done by one without authority, who purports to act in its behalf.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.