United States v. Pacific Railroad’s Empirical Analysis
120 U.S. 227 · 1887
Citation profile
27 federal appellate · 10 district · 41 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 161 later decisions (25 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2024 · most notably Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council (1992), Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952)
27 federal appellate · 10 district · 41 state decisions — followed in 11 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 Mitchell v. Harmony · Zottman v. City & County of San Francisco · United States v. Russell · Brown v. Hiatts
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 161 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““It is a general principle of both international and municipal law that all property is held subject, not only to be taken by the government for public uses, in which case, under the constitution of the United States, the owner is entitled to just compensation, but also subject to be temporarily occupied, or even actually destroyed, in times of great public danger, and when the public safety demands it; and in this latter case governments do not admit a legal obligation on their part to compensate the owner. The temporary occupation of, injuries to, and destruction of property, caused by actual and necessary military operations, is generally considered to fall within the last-mentioned principle. If a government makes compensation un- of der such circumstances, it is a matter bounty rather than of strict legal right.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“The destruction or injury of private property in battle, or in the bombardment of cities and towns, and in many other ways in the war, had to be borne by the sufferers alone, as one of its consequences. Whatever would embarrass or impede the advance of the enemy, as the breaking up of roads, or the burning of bridges, or would cripple and defeat him, as destroying his means of subsistence, were lawfully ordered by the commanding general. Indeed, it was his imperative duty to direct their destruction. The necessities of the war called for and justified this.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“may not be within the terms of the constitutional clause”
3 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.