Attorney General of Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Western Union Tel Co’s Empirical Analysis
Citation profile
1 district · 19 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 29 later decisions — most recently November 1932 · most notably Brennan v. City of Titusville (1894), Western Union Tel Co v. Taggart (1896)
1 district · 19 state decisions — followed in 12 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 Leloup v. Port of Mobile · Western Union Tel Co v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts · Ratterman v. Western Union Tel Co Western Union Tel Co
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 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““By whatever name the tax may be called, as described in the laws of Massachusetts, it is essentially an excise upon the capital of the corporation, and these laws attempt to ascertain the just amount which any corporation engaged in business within its limits shall pay, as a contribution for the support of its government, upon the amount and value of the capital so employed by. it therein.””
1 later decision 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.