Davie v. Briggs’s Empirical Analysis
97 U.S. 628 · 1878
Citation profile
59 federal appellate · 8 district · 69 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 170 later decisions (15 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2008 · most notably Burgess v. Seligman (1882), Fidelity Mutual Life Ass'n v. Mettler (1902)
59 federal appellate · 8 district · 69 state decisions — followed in 28 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 Leffingwell v. Warren · Asa Green v. The Lessee of Henry Neal · Suydam v. Williamson · Murray's v. Baker
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 170 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““If it appears in evidence that the absent person, within the seven years, encountered some specific peril, or within that period came within the range of some impending or immediate danger, which might reasonably be expected to destroy life, the court or jury may infer that life ceased before the expiration of the seven years. Mr. Taylor, in the first volume of his Treatise on the Law of Evidence (sect. 157), says, that ‘although a person who has not been heard of for seven years is presumed to be dead, the law raises no presumption as to the time of his death; and, therefore, if any one has to establish the precise period during those seven years at which such person died, he must do so by evidence, and can neither rely, on the one hand, on the presumption of death, nor, on the other, upon the presumption of the continuance of life.’ These views are in harmony with the settled law of the English courts. [Citing cases.]””
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The general rule undoubtedly is, that `a person shown not to have been heard of for seven years by those (if any) who, if he had been alive, would naturally have heard of him, is presumed to be dead, unless the circumstances of the case are such as to account for his not being heard of without assuming his death.' Stephen, Law of Evid., c. 14, art. 99; 1 Greenl.Evid., sect. 41; 1 Taylor, Evid., sect. 157, and authorities cited by each author.”
4 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.