Arthur Manigault v. Alfred a Springs’s Empirical Analysis
199 U.S. 473 · 1905
Citation profile
67 federal appellate · 53 district · 245 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 560 later decisions (63 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2021 · most notably Home Building & Loan Ass'n v. Blaisdell (1934), Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen (1917)
67 federal appellate · 53 district · 245 state decisions — followed in 37 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 Mugler v. State of Kansas State of Kansas Tufts · Chicago Co v. City of Chicago · Henning Jacobson v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts · Lawton v. Steele · Shively v. Bowlby
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 560 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It is the settled law of this court that the interdiction of statutes impairing the obligation of contracts does not prevent the State from exercising such powers as are vested in it for the promotion of the common weal, or are necessary for the general good of the public, though contracts previously entered into between individuals may thereby be affected. This power, which, in its various ramifications, is known as the police power, is an exercise of the sovereign right of the Government to protect the lives, health, morals, comfort and general welfare of the people, and is paramount to any rights under contracts between individuals.”
29 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““It is also assigned as error that the act of 1903 is obnoxious to the following provisions of the constitution of South Carolina, .... that ‘the general assembly of the state shall not enact local or special laws concerning any of the following subjects, or for any of the following purposes, to wit: . . . . II. To lay out, open, alter or work roads or highways. ’ . . . . Admitting that, for the purposes of transit and travel a river may be considered a highway, .... we think that, in connection with the words ‘to lay out, open, alter or work roads,’ the word ‘highway’ is used in its ordinary sense, and as an equivalent to a public road. The power given by this section is evidently inapplicable to water highways, which are neither laid out, opened, altered or worked in the ordinary sense of these words.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““It only remains to consider,” said the court, “in connection with this branch of the case, whether the act of the General Assembly of 1908 was a proper exercise of the police power of the state. Of this we have no doubt. Although it was not an exercise of that power in its ordinarily accepted sense of protecting the health, lives, and morals of the community, it is defensible in its broader meaning of providing for the general welfare of the people.””
2 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.