Progress Development Corporation v. Mitchell’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 1 district · 3 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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ * * * While for certain limited purposes it is often said that a municipality owns and operates its public utilities in its capacity as a private corporation and not in the exercise of its powers of local sovereignty, yet because of its proprietary rights it does not lose its governmental character. * * * It is manifest that the more so-called private property the people permit their governments to own and operate, the more important is the right to freely criticise the administration of the government. As the amount of property owned by the city and the amount of public business to be transacted by the city increase, so does the opportunity for inefficient and corrupt government increase and the greater will be the efforts of the administration to remain in control of such a political prize. The richer the city the greater the incentive to stifle opposition. In so far as the question before us is concerned, no distinction can be made with respect to the proprietary and governmental capacities of a city.” 307 Ill., at 609-610 , 139 N.E., at 91 .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 70 Ohio App. 2d 205 - Village of Grafton v. American Broadcasting Co.