Dillon v. Barnard’s Empirical Analysis
88 U.S. 430 · 1874
Citation profile
42 federal appellate · 7 district · 36 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 133 later decisions (18 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 1963 · most notably Swift Company v. Hocking Valley Railway Company (1917), National City Bank v. Hotchkiss (1913)
42 federal appellate · 7 district · 36 state decisions — followed in 19 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 133 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"some act of appropriation oil the part of the employer” ("the promisor) “depriving himself of the control of the funds, and conferring upon llie contractor” (the promisee) “the right to have them applied to his payment when the services are rendered or the mat ('rials are furnished. There must be a relinquishment by the employer of his right of dominion over the funds, so that without his aid or consent the contractor can enforce (heir application to his payment when his contract is completed. Nothing in the prac (ice of the parties justifies any such inference as that indicated.””
5 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.