Union Pac Ry v. Ryan’s Empirical Analysis
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 3 district · 20 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 36 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 1956 · most notably Pollock v. Farmers' Loan Traust Co, Pittsburgh St Ry Co v. Board of Public Works of West Virginia (1898)
1 federal appellate · 3 district · 20 state decisions — followed in 13 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 State Railroad Tax Cases Taylor Collector et al. v. Secor et al. · Cummings v. National Bank · Riggin v. Magwire · Litchfield v. County of Webster
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 36 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The difficulty of assessing the value of railroad property in separate parcels, located in distinct cities and townships, is almost insuperable. A railroad cannot be regarded as mere land, like farm land or building lots; its value depends upon the whole line as a unit, to be used as a thoroughfare and means of transportation. A separate mile or two of its length is almost valueless by itself. ... It seems hardly to admit of a doubt, that the object of this scheme was to withdraw the difficult task of assessing fractional parts of a railroad and its property from the hands of local assessors, who could hardly be expected to proceed upon any uniform plan, and each of whom would naturally favor his own particular district. ’ ’”
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.