Smyth v. Ames’s Empirical Analysis
171 U.S. 361 · 1898
Citation profile
11 federal appellate · 7 district · 13 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 50 later decisions (3 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 1995 · most notably Simpson v. Shepard (1913), Northern Pacific Railway Co. v. North Dakota ex rel. McCue (1915)
11 federal appellate · 7 district · 13 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 Smyth v. Ames
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.
““The court is of opinion that the present application by the appellants in each of the above cases should be granted. The general question argued before us on the original hearing was whether the rates established by the Nebraska statute, looking at them as an entirety, were so unreasonably low as to prevent the railroad companies from earning such compensation as would be just, having due regard to the rights both of the public and of the companies. In our examination of that question it was appropriate and necessary to inquire as to the earnings of the respective companies under the rates which they had established, looking at those rates, also, as an entirety. In this way we ascertained the probable effect of the statute in question. We did not intend by an affirmance of the several decrees to adjudge that the railroad companies should not at any time in the future, if they saw proper, reduce the rates, or any of them, under which they were conducting business at the time the final decrees were rendered, nor that the state board of transportation should not reduce rates on specific or particular articles below the rates which the companies were charging on such articles when the decrees were entered. It may well be that on some particular article the railroad companies may deem it wise to make a reduction of the rate, and it may be that the public interests will justify the state board of transportation in ordering such reduction. We have not laid down an5r east-iron rule ”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““That the defendants, members of the board of transportation of said state, may hereafter, when the circumstances have changed so that the rates fixed in the said act shall yield to the said companies reasonable compensation for the services rendered, apply to this court, by supplemental bill or otherwise, as they may be advised, for a further order in that behalf.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““Of course, the unreasonableness of a schedule of rates must be determined by the facts as they exist when it is sought to put such rates into operation.””
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.