Louisville Nashville Railroad Company v. Central Stock Yards Company’s Empirical Analysis
212 U.S. 132 · 1909
Citation profile
8 federal appellate · 21 district · 53 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 140 later decisions (13 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 1984 · most notably Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad (1916), Siler v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad (1909)
8 federal appellate · 21 district · 53 state decisions — followed in 18 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 Cromwell v. County of Sac · Gibbons v. Ogden · Munn v. Illinois · Prentis v. Atlantic Coast Line Co. · Robbins v. Taxing District of Shelby Co Tennessee
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 140 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““In view of the well-known and necessary practice of connecting roads, we are far from saying that a valid law could not be passed to prevent the cost and loss of time entailed by needless transshipment or breaking bulk, in case of an unreasonable refusal by a carrier to interchange cars with another for through traffic. We do not pass upon the question. It is enough to observe that such a law perhaps ought to be so limited as to respect the' paramount needs of the carrier concerned, and at least could be sustained only with full and adequate regulations for its protection for loss or undue detention of cars, and for securing due compensation for their use.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““There remains for consideration only the third, division of the judgment, which requires the plaintiff in error to receive at the connecting point, and to switch, transport, and deliver, all live stock consigned from the Central Stockyard to any one at the Bourbon Stockyards. This also is based upon the sections of the Constitution that have been quoted. If the principle is sound, every road into Louisville, by making a physical connection with the Louisville & Nashville, can get the use of its costly terminals and make it do the switching necessary to that end, upon simply paying for the service of carriage. The duty of a carrier to accept goods tendered at its station does not extend to the acceptance of cars offered to it at an arbitrary point near its terminus by a competing road, for the purpose of reaching and using its terminal station. To require such an acceptance from a railroad is to take its property in a very effective sense, and cannot be justified, unless the railroad holds that property subject to greater liabilities than those incident to its calling alone.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“furnish such transportation upon reasonable request therefor.”
1 later decision 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.