Armour Packing Company v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
209 U.S. 56 · 1908
Citation profile
372 federal appellate · 128 district · 147 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,016 later decisions (100 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Southern Pacific Terminal Company v. Interstate Commerce Commission (1911), Yakus v. United States (1944)
372 federal appellate · 128 district · 147 state decisions — followed in 33 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedArmour Packing Co. v. United States (from Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Reynolds v. States · United States v. Cruikshank · Durland v. United States · Burton v. United States · Burton v. United States
Cited together with New York New Haven Hartford Railroad Company v. Interstate Commerce Commission · Texas Pacific Railway Company v. Abilene Cotton Oil Company · Louisville Nashville Railroad Company v. G a Maxwell · Louisville & Nashville Railroad v. Mottley · United States v. Johnson
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 1,016 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[i]f the rates are subject to secret alteration by special agreement then the statute will fail of its purpose to establish a rate duly published, known to all, and from which neither shipper nor carrier may depart.”
36 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“While intent is, in a certain sense essential to the commission of a crime, and in some classes of cases it is necessary to show moral turpitude in order to make out a crime, there is a class of cases within which we think the one under consideration falls, where purposely doing a thing prohibited by statute may amount to an offense, although the act does not involve turpitude or moral wrong. In this case the statutes provide it shall be penal to receive transportation of goods at less than the published rate. Whether shippers who pay a rate under the honest belief that it is the lawfully established rate, when in fact it is not, are liable under the statute because of a duty resting on them to inform themselves as to the existence of the elements essential to establish a rate as required by law, is a question not decided because not arising on this record. The stipulated facts show that the shippers had knowledge of the rates published and shipped the goods under a contention of their legal right to do so. This was all the knowledge or guilty intent that the act required.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““This court has frequently had occasion to hold that the accused is entitled to know the nature and cause of the accusation against him, and that a charge must be sufficiently definite to enable him to make his defense and avail himself of the record of conviction or acquittal for his protection against further prosecutions.””
6 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.