Central Transp Co v. Pullman's Palace Car Co’s Empirical Analysis
Citation profile
36 federal appellate · 11 district · 204 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 296 later decisions (4 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2014 · most notably Siler v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad (1909), Union Pac Ry Co v. Chicago R I P Ry Co Union Pac Ry Co (1896)
36 federal appellate · 11 district · 204 state decisions — followed in 43 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 Oscanyan v. Arms Co. · Railway Company v. McCarthy · Gayler v. Wilder · Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge · Railroad Company v. Lockwood
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 296 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““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 any 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.””
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“- “The contract cannot be ratified by either party, because it could not have been authorized by either. No performance on either side can give the unlawful contract any validity, or be the foundation of any right of action upon it.””
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“‘•The charter of a corporal ion, read in the light of any -general laws which are applicable, is the measure of its powers, and the enumeration of those powers implies the exclusion of all others not fairly incidental. All contracts made by a corporation beyond the scope of those powers are unlawful and void, and no action can be maintained upon them in the courts; and this, upon three distinct grounds: The obligation of every one contracting with a corporation .to take notice of the legal limits of its powers; the interest of the stockholders, not to be subjected to risks which they have never undertaken; and, above all, the interest of the public, that the corporation shall not transcend the powers conferred upon it by law.””
4 later decisions 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.