Schollenberger v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Paul’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

17 federal appellate · 29 district · 88 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 271 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The general rule to be deduced from the decisions of this court is that a lawful article of commerce cannot be wholly excluded from importation into a State from another State where it was manufactured or grown. A State has power to regulate the introduction of any article, including a food product, so as to insure purity of the article imported, but such police power does not include the total exclusion even of an article of food. “In Minnesota v. Barber, 136 U.S. 313 [ 10 S.Ct. 862 , 34 L.Ed. 455 ], it was held that an inspection law relating to an article of food was not a rightful exercise of the police power of the State if the inspection prescribed were of such a character or if it were burdened with such conditions as would wholly prevent the introduction of the sound article from other States. This was held in relation to the slaughter of animals whose meat was to be sold as food in the State passing the so-called inspection law. The principle was affirmed in Brimmer v. Rebman, 138 U.S. 78 [ 11 S.Ct. 213 , 34 L.Ed. 862 ], and in Scott v. Donald, 165 U.S. 58, 97 [ 17 S.Ct. 265 , 41 L.Ed. 632 ].””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 77 Cal. App. Supp. 2d 929 - People v. Marine Products Co.

2. ““The power vested in Congress by the commerce clause is the power to prescribe the rule by which that commerce is to be governed, and is a power complete in itself, acknowledging no limitations other than those prescribed in the Constitution. It is coextensive with the subject on which it acts and cannot be stopped at the external boundary of a state, but must enter its interior and must be capable of authorizing the disposition of the articles which it introduces, so that they may become ¡mingled with the common mass of property within the territory entered; and while, by virtue of its jurisdiction over persons and property within its- limits, a state may provide for the security of the lives, limbs, health, and comfort of persons and the protection of property so- situated, yet a subject-matter that has been confided exclusively to Congress by the Constitution is not within the jurisdiction of the police power of the state.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Ex parte Eaglesfield

3. ““If there be any subject over which it would seem the state ought to have plenary control, and the power to legislate in respect to which it ought not to be supposed was intended to be surrendered to the general government, it is the protection of the people against fraud and deception in the sale of food products. Such legislation may indeed indirectly or incidentally affect trade in such products transported from one state to another state, but the circumstance does not show that laws of the character alluded to are inconsistent with the power of Congress to regulate commerce among the states.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. McDermott v. State