Memphis Co v.’s Empirical Analysis
117 U.S. 1 · 1886
Citation profile
54 federal appellate · 16 district · 82 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 245 later decisions (23 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2007 · most notably Moore v. New York Cotton Exchange (1926), Central Transportation Co. v. Pullman's Palace Car Co. (1891)
54 federal appellate · 16 district · 82 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 The New Jersey Steam Navigation Company v. The Merchants' Bank of Boston · Pulllman's Palace Car Co. v. Missouri Pacific Railway Co. · Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad v. Denver & New Orleans Railroad
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 245 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““In this way, as it seems to us, the court has made an arrangement for the business intercourse of these companies, such as, in its opinion, they ought to have made for themselves,” and that, we said in Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co. v. Denver & N. O. R. Co., 110 U. S. 667 , 4 Sup. Ct. Rep. 185 , followed at this term in Pullman's Palace Car Co. v. Missouri Pac. Ry. Co., 115 U. S. 587 , 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 194 , could not be done. The regulation of matters of this kind is legislative in its character, not judicial. To what extent it must come, if it comes at all, from congress, and to what extent it may come from the states, are questions we do not now undertake to decide; but that it must come, when it does come, from some source of legislative power, we do not doubt.” 117 U. S. 29 , 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 556 .”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage““As the business to be done is ‘express,’ it implies access to the train for loading at the latest, and for unloading at the earliest, convenient moment. All this is entirely inconsistent with the idea of an express business on passenger trains free to all express carriers. * * * This implies a special understanding and agreement as to the amount of car space that will be afforded, and the conditions on which it is to be occupied, the particular trains that can be used, the places at which they shall stop, the price to be paid, and all the varying details of a business which is to be adjusted between two public servants, so that each can perform in the best manner its own particular duties. * * * The car space that can be given to the express business on a passenger train is, to a certain extent, limited, and, as has been seen, that which is allotted to a particular carrier must be, in a measure, under his exclusive control” ( 117 U.S. 1 , 23-24, 6 S.Ct. 542 , 553).”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“But it is neither averred in the bills, nor shown by the testimony, that any railroad company in the United States has ever held itself out, as a common carrier of express companies; that is to say, as a common carrier of common carriers. On the contrary, it has been shown, and in fact it was conceded upon the argument, that down to the time of bringing these suits no railroad company had taken an express company on its road for business except under some special contract, verbal or written, and generally written, in which the rights and the duties of the respective parties were carefully fixed and defined.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.