Smeltzer v. White’s Empirical Analysis
92 U.S. 390 · 1875
Citation profile
5 federal appellate · 9 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 19 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 1940
5 federal appellate · 9 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.
Relationships
Relies on Richard Drummond Surviving Partner of Charles Drummond v. Executors of George Prestman · Walker v. Ferrin · Carpenter v. Pier · Prescott v. Gonser
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 19 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Now, as the treasurer can pay no orders or warrants unless they are sealed with the county seal, and as all warrants were required to be' sealed by the county judge until I860, when the board of supervisors was charged with his duties, except that their warrants are required to be signed by their clerk, it is very evident that no warrant is a genuine county warrant which is unsealed with the county seal. The statute expressly requires the board of supervisors, in all cases where the powers conferred by the act upon the board had been before exercised by the county judges, to conduct their proceedings under said powers in the same way and manner as had been provided by law in such cases for the proceedings of the county judge. Revision 1860, § 325. It is too clear, therefore, for debate, that the genuineness and regularity of issue of county warrants can exist only in cases when the warrants are sealed with the county seal; and so it has been decided by the Supreme Court of Iowa, substantially, both in Prescott v. Gonser, 34 Iowa, 178 , and in Springer v. The County of Clay, 35 Iowa, 243 .””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““The fifth assignment is that the court erred in overruling the defendant’s offer to show that the warrants were regularly issued for legal claims against the county. The offer, we think, was correctly overruled. The evidence proposed had no relevancy to the issue in the case. That the warrants were issued for debts due by the county was of no importance if they were not genuine, and in the form that the law required to enable the holder to set them iip as legitimate claims against the county. What availed it to the plaintiff that the county owed the sums of money mentioned in the warrants, if the warrants were nullities? His only means of recovering the money was through the warrants.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““So it has been held, that, in construing a guaranty, it is proper to look at the surrounding circumstances in order to discover the subject-matter the parties had in view, and thus to ascertain the scope and object of the guaranty.””
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.