Northern Securities Company v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
193 U.S. 197 · 1904
Citation profile
265 federal appellate · 111 district · 315 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,242 later decisions (233 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2024 · most notably Furman v. Georgia (1972), Connally v. General Construction Co. (1926)
265 federal appellate · 111 district · 315 state decisions — followed in 42 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 Schneckloth v. Bustamonte · Yick Wo v. Hopkins · M'Culloch v. State of Maryland · Gibbons v. Ogden · Smyth v. Ames
Cited together with Standard Oil Company of New Jersey v. United States · Addyston Pipe Steel Company v. United States · Swift Company v. United States · United States v. Trans-Missouri Freight Ass'n · United States of America v. American Tobacco 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 1,242 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Great cases like hard cases make bad law. For great cases are called great, not by reason of their real importance in shaping the law of the future, but because of some accident of immediate overwhelming interest which appeals to the feelings and distorts the judgment. These immediate interests exercise a kind of hydraulic pressure which makes what previously was clear seem doubtful, and before which even well settled principles of law will bend.”
49 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal. Every person who shall make any contract or engage in any combination or conspiracy hereby declared to be illegal shall be deemed guilty of a felony.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage“Whether the free operation of the normal laws of competition is a wise and wholesome rule for trade and commerce is an economic question which this court need not consider or determine.”
7 later decisions 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.