United States v. Ames’s Empirical Analysis
99 U.S. 35 · 1878
Citation profile
48 federal appellate · 29 district · 31 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 207 later decisions (28 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2025 · most notably Continental Grain Company v. The Fbl-585 (1960), The Oregon (1895)
48 federal appellate · 29 district · 31 state decisions — followed in 16 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 The Palmyra · The Steamer Webb · Clement Hunt v. Christopher Rhodes · Leon v. Galceran
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 207 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The averments of the bill as to the purport and meaning of the provisions of the indenture, the object of their insertion in the instrument, and the obligations they imposed upon the corporation and the trustees, and the rights they conferred upon the plaintiff when his contract was approved, are not admitted by the demurrer. These are matters of legal inference, conclusions of law upon the construction of the indenture, and are open to contention, a copy of the instrument itself being annexed to the bill and, therefore, before the court for inspection. A demurrer only admits facts well pleaded; it does not admit matters of inference and argument, however clearly stated; it does not admit, for example, the accuracy of an alleged construction of an instrument, when the instrument itself is set forth in the bill, or a copy is annexed, against a construction required by its terms; nor the correctness of the ascription of a purpose to the parties when not justified by the language used. The several averments of the plaintiff in the bill as to his understanding of his rights, and of the liabilities and duties of others under the contract, can, therefore, exert no influence upon the mind of the court in the disposition of the demurrer.” (p. 437.)”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““It became the substitute for the property, and the remedy of the libelants, in case they prevailed in the suit in rem for condemnation, was transferred from the property to the bond or stipulation accepted by the court as the substitute for the property seized.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“Henry Morrison, Petitioner, v. The District Court of the United States for the District of Massachusetts and.the Honorable Thomas L. Nelson, Judge of the said Court. Petition for a writ of prohibition.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. In re Morrison
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.