Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Co.’s Empirical Analysis
206 U.S. 230 · 1907
Citation profile
151 federal appellate · 60 district · 55 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 526 later decisions (88 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2025 · most notably Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co. (1911), Massachusetts v. Mellon (1923)
151 federal appellate · 60 district · 55 state decisions — followed in 15 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 Hans v. State of Louisiana · M'Culloch v. State of Maryland · Lawton v. Steele · In re Debs · Holden v. Hardy
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 526 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[i]t is a fair and reasonable demand on the part of a sovereign that the air over its territory should not be polluted on a great scale ... and whatever domestic destruction [the forests] have suffered, should not be further destroyed or threatened by acts of persons beyond its control....”
38 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““* -x- * [W]e are satisfied, by a preponderance of evidence, that the sulphurous fumes cause and threaten damage on so considerable a scale to the forests and vegetable life, if not to health, within the plaintiff state as to make out a case [parens patriae] * * (Emphasis added.)”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“discharging noxious gas from their works in Tennessee over the plaintiff's territory.”
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.