General Oil Co. v. Crain’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

72 federal appellate · 41 district · 183 state decisions

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 468 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The company was doing business in the state, and its property was receiving the protection of the state. Its oil was not in movement through the state. It had reached the destination of its first shipment, and it was held there, not in necessary delay or accommodation to the means of transportation, as in State, etc., v. Engle [ 34 N. J. Law, 425 ], but for the business purposes and profit of the company. It was only there for distribution, it is said, to fulfill orders already received. But to do this required that the property be given a locality in the state beyond a mere halting in its transportation. It required storage there — the maintenance of the means’ of storage. * * * The bill takes pains to allege this. ‘Complainant shows that it is impossible, in the coal oil business, such as complainant carries on] to fill separately each of these small orders directly from the railroad tank cars, because of the great delay and expense in the way of freight charges incident to such a plan, and for the further reason that an extensive plant and apparatus is necessary, in order to properly and conveniently unload and receive the oil from said tank ears, and it would be impracticable, if not impossible, to have such apparatus and machinery at every point to which complainant ships said oil.’ This certainly describes a business — describes a purpose for which the oil was taken from transportation, brought to rest in the state, and for which the protection of the state is necessar”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Champlain Realty Co. v. Town of Brattleboro · Binderup v. Pathe Exchange, Inc.

2. ““Its oil was not in movement through the state. It had reached the destination of its first shipment, and it was held there, not in necessary delay or accommodation to the means of transportation, as in State, etc., v. Engle, supra [ 34 N. J. Law, 425 ] but for the business purposes and profit of the company. It was only there for distribution, it is said, to fulfill orders already received. But to do this required that the property be given a lo eality in the state beyond a mere halting in its transportation. It required storage there —the maintenance of the means of storage, of putting it in and taking it from storage.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Atlantic Coast Line R. v. Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey · Seaboard Air Line Ry. Co. v. Lee

3. “[T]he exception to our sovereign immunity doctrine recognized in Ex parte Young is based in part on the premise that sovereign immunity bars relief against States and their officers in both state and federal courts, and that certain suits for declaratory or injunctive relief against state officers must therefore be permitted if the Constitution is to remain the supreme law of the land. As we explained in General Oil Co. v. Crain, 209 U.S. 211 , 28 S.Ct. 475 , 52 L.Ed. 754 (1908), a case decided the same day as Ex parte Young and extending the rule of that case to state-court suits: “It seems to be an obvious consequence that as a State can only perform its functions through its officers, a restraint upon them is a restraint upon its sovereignty from which it is exempt without its consent in the state tribunals, and exempt by the Eleventh Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, in the national tribunals. The error is in the universality of the conclusion, as we have seen. Necessarily to give adequate protection to constitutional rights a distinction must be made between valid and invalid state laws, as determining the character of the suit against state officers.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 133 F. Supp. 2d 549 - Westside Mothers v. Haveman