Swift Company v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
196 U.S. 375 · 1905
Citation profile
652 federal appellate · 281 district · 191 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,123 later decisions (294 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2024 · most notably Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co. (1970), United States v. United States Gypsum Co. (1948)
652 federal appellate · 281 district · 191 state decisions — followed in 35 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 Boyd v. United States · Gibbons v. Ogden · Counselman v. Hitchcock · United States v. Cruikshank
Cited together with Standard Oil Company of New Jersey v. United States · American Tobacco Co. v. United States · Stafford v. Wallace · United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co. · United States v. E. I. Du Pont De Nemours & 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 2,123 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The general objection is urged that the bill does not set forth sufficient definite or specific facts. This objection is serious, but it seems to us inherent in the nature of the ease. The scheme alleged is so vast that it presents a new problem in pleading. If, as we must assume, the scheme is entertained, it is, of course contrary to the very words of the statute. Its size makes the violation of the law more conspicuous, and yet the same thing makes it impossible to fasten the principal fact to a certain time and place. The elements, too, are so numerous and shifting, even the constituent parts alleged are, and from their nature must be, so extensive in time and space, that something- of the same impossibility applies to them. The law has been upheld, and therefore we are bound to enforce it notwithstanding these difficulties.””
31 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“commerce among the States is not a technical legal conception, but a practical one, drawn from the course of business.”
16 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“the scheme as a whole seems to ... be within the reach of the law. The constituent elements ... are enough to give the scheme a body and, for all that we can say, to accomplish it.... Although the combination alleged embraces restraint and monopoly of trade within a single State, its effect upon commerce among the States is not accidental, secondary, remote, or merely probable ....”
5 later decisions 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.