United States v. Throckmorton’s Empirical Analysis
98 U.S. 61 · 1878
Citation profile
297 federal appellate · 81 district · 874 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,569 later decisions (69 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2022 · most notably Hilton v. Guyot (1895), Hazel-Atlas Glass Co. v. Hartford-Empire Co. (1944)
297 federal appellate · 81 district · 874 state decisions — followed in 47 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 Pearce v. Olney · Borland v. Thornton · Kent v. Ricards · Wierich v. De Zoya
Cited together with Hazel-Atlas Glass Co. v. Hartford-Empire Co. · Marshall v. Holmes · Toledo Scale Co. v. Computing Scale Co. · Vance v. Burbank · Pico v. Cohn
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 1,569 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“from presenting all of his case to the court,”
134 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““In Throckmorton’s Case, it is true, a part of the relief sought was to set aside a patent for land issued by the United States. But rhe patent was issued on the confirmation of a Mexican grant after proceedings prescribed by the act of Congress on that subject. Those proceedings were judicial. They were commenced before a Board of Commissioners. There were pleadings and parties, and the claimant was plaintiff, and the United States was defendant. Both parties were represented by counsel, the United States having in all such cases her regular district attorney to represent her. Witnesses were examined in the usual way. by depositions, subject to cross-examinations, and not by ex“parte affidavits. From this tribunal there was a right of appeal to the District Court, and from that court to the Supreme 'Court, of the United States, by either party. There was nothing wanting to make such a proceeding, in the highest sense, a judicial one, and to give to its final judgment or decree all the respect, the verity, the conclusiveness, which belong to such a final decree between the parties. The patent could only issue on this final decree of confirmation of the Spanish or Mexican grant, and was, in effect, but the execution of that decree. “It was to such a case as this that the ruling in Throckmorton’s Case was applied. The court said in that case, which was a bill to set aside the decree of confirmation: ‘The genuineness and validity of the concession from Miclielterona, produced by”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““There is no question of the general doctrine that fraud vitiates the most solemn contracts, documents, and even judgments. There is also no question that many rights originally founded in fraud become — by lapse of time, by the difficulty of proving the fraud, and by the protection which the law throws around rights once established by formal judicial proceedings in tribunals established by law, according to the methods of the law — no longer open to inquiry in the usual and ordinary methods. Of this class are judgments and decrees of a court deciding between parties before the court and subject to its jurisdiction, in a trial which has presented the claims of the parties, and where they have received the consideration of the court.””
2 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.