Cooke v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
91 U.S. 389 · 1875
Citation profile
83 federal appellate · 45 district · 47 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 324 later decisions (41 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2016 · most notably Clearfield Trust Co. v. United States (1943), United States v. Winstar Corp. (1996)
83 federal appellate · 45 district · 47 state decisions — followed in 20 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. Mott · Gibbons v. United States · United States v. The Bank of the Metropolis · Mercer County v. Hacket
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 324 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Generally, in respect to all the commercial business of the government, if an officer specially charged with the performance of any duty, and authorized to represent the government in that behalf, neglects that duty, and loss ensues, the government must bear the consequences of his neglect. But this cannot happen until the officer specially charged with the duty, if there be one, has acted, or ought to have acted.””
11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“It is undoubtedly, also, true, as a general rule of commercial law, that where one accepts forged paper purporting to be his own, and pays it to a holder for value, he cannot recall - the payment. The operative fact in this rule is the acceptance, or more properly, perhaps, the adoption of the paper as genuine by its' apparent maker. . . . He must repudiate as soon as he ought to have discovered the forgery, ’ otherwise he will be regarded as accepting the paper. Unnecessary delay under such circumstances is unreasonable; and unreasonable delay is negligence, which throws the burden of the loss upon him who is guilty of it, rather than upon one who is not.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“When, therefore, a party is entitled to something more than a mere inspection of the paper before he can be required to pass finally' upon its character — as, for example, an examination of accounts or records kept by him for the purpose of verification — negligence sufficient to charge him with a loss cannot be claimed until this examination ought to have been completed. If, in the ordinary course of business, this might have been done before payment, it ought to have been, and payment without it will have the effect of an acceptance and adoption. . . .”
1 later decision 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.