Whitehurst v. . Day’s Empirical Analysis
1884
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 10 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently January 2025
1 federal appellate · 10 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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““If, however, we are compelled by the general words used" to extend the enactment so as to embrace claims which had become remediless by action at the time of its passage, and impart new life and activity to the obligation, we should be disposed to hold its operation in these cases to be an impairment of vested rights and as falling within the inhibition of 'the federal constitution, notwithstanding the doubt expressed by Mr. Justice Reade in Pearsall v. Kenan, 79 N.C. 472 [ 28 Am.Rep. 336 ], based upon the ruling in Hinton v. Hinton, Phil., 410 [ 61 N.C. 410 ]. “The adjudications in the states are numerous to the point that while the legislature may extend the time or shorten it, leaving a reasonable interval, in which the plaintiff may and must pursue his remedy against his delinquent debtor before the statutory bar becomes complete and effective for the protection of the debtor, it cannot expose him to an action and the recovery of a demand by an act of legislation passed after the statutory bar has become a full defence. As the obligations of a contract cannot be impaired to the prejudice of the creditor, so the liabilities of the defendant under it cannot be increased by a subsequent act of state legislation. “The principle is thus laid down by a recent author and fortified by references to many adjudications. ‘Statutes of limitation relate only to the remedy and may be altered or repealed before the statutory bar has become complete, but not after, so as to defeat the e”
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.