Smith v. . Roberts’s Empirical Analysis
1883
Citation profile
46 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 46 later decisions — most recently February 1975 · most notably Sichler v. Look (1892), Dunkum v. MacEck Building Corp. (1931)
46 state decisions — followed in 14 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 Martin v. . Funk · James v. Morey · Champney v. . Coope · Starr v. Ellis · Gardner v. Astor
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 46 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““But while a merger at law follows inevitably upon the union of a greater and lesser estate in the same ownership, it does not so follow in equity; There the doctrine is not favored, and the estates will be kept separate, where such is the intention of the parties and justice requires it, and that intention will be gathered, not only from the acts and declarations of the party, but from a view of the situation as affecting his interest, at least prior to the presence of some third person’s right.””
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.