Reagan v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

159 federal appellate · 150 district · 260 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 1,175 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Neither will the constitutionality of the statute, if that be conceded, avail to oust the federal court of jurisdiction. A valid law may be wrongfully administered by officers of the state, and so as to make such administration an illegal burden and exaction upon the individual. A tax law, as it leaves the legislative hands, may not be obnoxious to any challenge, and yet the officers charged with the administration of that valid tax law may so act under it in the matter of assessment or collection as to work an illegal trespass upon the property rights of the individual. They may go beyond the powers thereby conferred, and, when they do so, the fact that they are assuming to act under a valid law will not oust the courts of jurisdiction to restrain their excessive and illegal acts. In Cunningham v. Macon & Brunswick Railroad, 109 U. S. 446 , 452 [ 3 Sup. Ct. 292 , 296 ( 27 L. Ed. 992 )], it was said: ‘Another class of cases is where an individual is sued in tort for some act injurious to another in regard to person or property, to which his defense is that he has acted under the orders of the government. In these cases -he is not sued as, or because he is, the officer of the government, but as an individual, and the court is not ousted, of jurisdiction because he asserts authority as such officer. To make out his defense he must show that his authority was sufficient in law to protect him. See Mitchell v. Harmony, 13 How. 115 [ 14 L. Ed. 75 ]; Bates v. Clark, 95 U. S. 204 [ ”

   13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Metropolitan Life Ins. v. McNall · Mutual Life Ins. Co. of New York v. Boyle

2. “"The equal protection of the laws, which, by the fourteenth amendment, no state can deny to the Individual, forbids legislation, in whatever form it may be enacted, by which the property of one individual is, without compensation, wrested from him for the benefit of another, or of the public. This, as has been often observed, is a government of law, and not a government of men, and it must never be forgotten that under such a government, with its constitutional limitations and guaranties, the forms of law and the machinery of government, with all their reach and power, must in their actual workings stop on the hither side of the unnecessary and uncompensated taking or destruction of any private property, legally acquired and legally held.””

   13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. San Diego Land & Town Co. v. City of National City · Southern Pac. Co. v. Board of Railroad Com'rs

3. ““The courts are not authorized to revise or change the body of rates imposed by a legislai nre or a commission. They do not determine whotlier one rate is preferable 1o another, or what, under all circumstances, would be fair and reasonable as between the carriers and the shippers. They do not engage in any mere administrative work. But still there can be no doubt of tlieir power and duty to inquire whether a body of rates prescribed by a legislature or a commission is unjust and unreasonable, and such as to work a practical destruction to rights of property, and, if found so to be, to restrain its operation.””

   6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Southern Pac. Co. v. Board of Railroad Com'rs · Capital City Gaslight Co. v. City of Des Moines