Pennsylvania Railroad v. St. Louis, Alton & Terre Haute Railroad’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

73 federal appellate · 16 district · 66 state decisions

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 308 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““It does not seem to admit of question that a eorporatioin of one State, owning property "and doing business in another state 'by permission of the latter, does not thereby become a citizen of this State also. 'And so a corporation of Illinois, authorized by its laws to build a railroad across the State from the Mississippi River to its eastern boundary, may, by the permission of the State of Indiana, extend its road a few miles within the limits of the latter, or, indeed, through the entire State, and may use and operate the line as one road by the permission of the State, without thereby becoming a corporation or a citizen of the State of Indiana; nor does it seem to us that an Act of the Legislature conferring upon this corporation of Illinois by its Illinois corporate name, such powers (to enable it to use and control that part of the road within the State of Indiana) as have been conferred on it by the State which created it, constitutes it a corporation of Indiana. It may not be easy, in all such eases, to distinguish between the purpose to create a new corporation which shall owe its existence to the law or Statute under consideration, and the intent to enable the corporation already in existence under laws of another State to exercise its functions in the State where it is so received. The latter class of laws is common in authorizing insurance companies, banking companies, and others to do business in other States than those which have chartered them." To make sueh a”

   8 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Rhode Island Hospital Trust Co. v. Doughton · Myers v. Murray, Nelson & Co.

2. ““A contract ultra vires being unlawful and void, not because it is in itself. immoral, but because the corporation, by the law of its creation, Is incapable of making it, the courts, while refusing to maintain an action upon the unlawful contract, have always striven to do justice between the parties, so-far as could be done consistently with adherence to law, by permitting property or money, parted with on the faith of the unlawful contract, to be recovered back, or compensation to be made for it. In such case, however, the action is not maintained on the unlawful contract, nor according to its-terms, but on an implied contract of the defendant to return, or, failing to do that, to make compensation for property or money which it has no right to retain. To maintain such an action is not to affirm but to disaffirm the-unlawful contract. The ground and limits of the rule concerning the remedy in the case of a contract ultra vires, which has been partly performed, and under which property has been passed, can hardly be summed up better than they were by Mr. Justice Miller, in a passage already quoted, where he-said that the rule ‘stands upon the broad ground that the contract itself is void, and that nothing which has been done under it, nor the action of the court, can infuse any vitality into it’; and that, ‘where the parties have so-far acted under such a contract that they cannot be restored to their original condition, the court inquires if relief can be given independentl”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Central Transportation Co. v. Pullman's Palace Car Co. · Campbell v. Argenta Gold & Silver Min. Co.

3. ““We think it may be stated, as the just result of the^e cases and on sound principle, that unless specially authorized by its charter, or aided by some other legislative action, a railroad company cannot, by lease or any other contract, turn over to another company, for a long period of time, its road and' all its appurtenances, the use of its franchises, and the exercise 'of its powers, nor can any other railroad company without, similar authority make a contract to receive and operate suck road,' franchises and property of the' first corporation, and that such a contract is not among the ordinary powers .of a railroad company, and is not to be presumed from the usual grant of powers in a railroad charter.””

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Oregon Railway & Navigation Co. v. Oregonian Railway Co. · Union Pac. Ry. Co. Et Al. v. Chicago, R. I. & P. Ry. Co.