United States v. Southern Pac R Co’s Empirical Analysis
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 27 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 50 later decisions (5 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 1981 · most notably Southern Pacific Railroad v. United States (1897), Southern Pac Co v. United States
2 federal appellate · 27 state decisions
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 Leavenworth Lawrence and Galveston Railroad Company v. United States · Schulenberg v. Harriman · Hastings Co v. Whitney · St Paul Co v. Northern Pac R Co · Railroad Company v. Baldwin
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 50 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Our conclusions, therefore, are, that a- valid and suificient map of definite location of its route from the Colorado River to the Pacific Ocean was filed by the Atlantic and Pacific Company and approved by the Secretary of the Interior; that by such act the title to these lands passed, under the grant of 1866, to the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company, and remained held by it subject to a condition subsequent until the act of forfeiture of 1886; that by. that act of forfeiture the. title of the Atlantic and Pacific was retaken by the General Government and retaken for its benefit, and not that of the Southern Pacific Company, and that the latter company has no title of a/ny kind to these lands.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“•‘Tlie question is asked, supposing the Atlantic & Pacific had never located its line west of the Colorado river, would not these lands have passed to the Southern Pacific Company under its grant? Very likely that may be so. The language of tlie Southern Pacific Company’s grant is broad enough to include all land along its line; and, if the grant to the Atlantic & Pacific Company had never taken effect, it may be that there is nothing which would interfere with the passage of the title to the Southern Pacific Company.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“no scramble between companies for the grasping of titles by priority of location, but that it is to be regarded as though title passes as of the date of the act, and to the company having priority of grant, and, therefore, that, in the eye of the law it is now as though there never was a period of time during which any title to these lands was in the Southern Pacific”
1 later decision 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.