Murdock v. City of Memphis’s Empirical Analysis
87 U.S. 590 · 1875
Citation profile
93 federal appellate · 15 district · 64 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 516 later decisions (184 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2025 · most notably Wainwright v. Sykes (1977), Delaware v. Van Arsdall (1986)
93 federal appellate · 15 district · 64 state decisions — followed in 23 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 Durousseau v. United States · M'Keen v. Delancy's Lessee · United States v. Gill
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 516 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““A careful comparison of these two sections can leave no doubt that it was the intention of Congress, by the latter statute, to revise the entire matter to which they both had reference, to make such changes in the law as it stood as they thought best, and to substitute their will in that regard entirely for the old law upon the subject. We are of opinion that it was their Intention to make a new law so far as the present law differed from the former, and that the new law, embracing all that was intended to be preserved of the old, omitting what was not so intended, became complete in itself, and repealed all other law on the subject embraced within it. The authorities on this subject are clear and uniform. The result of this reasoning is that the twenty-fifth section of the act of 1789 is technically repealed, and that the second section of the act of 1867 has taken its place. What of the statute of 1789 is embraced in that of 1867 is, of course, the law now, and has been ever since it was first made so. What is changed or modified is the law as thus changed or modified. That which is omitted ceased to have any effect from the day that the substituted statute was approved.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“At all events, whether the one construction or the other prevail, it is manifest that the judicial power of the United States is unavoidably, in some cases, exclusive of all state authority, and in all others, may be made so at the election of congress.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]he State courts are the appropriate tribunals, as this court has repeatedly held, for the decision of questions arising under their local law, whether statutory or otherwise.”
2 later decisions 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.