Southern Pacific Terminal Company v. Interstate Commerce Commission’s Empirical Analysis
219 U.S. 498 · 1911
Citation profile
1,837 federal appellate · 400 district · 719 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 4,407 later decisions (192 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 2024 · most notably Roe v. Wade (1973), Sosna v. Iowa (1975)
1,837 federal appellate · 400 district · 719 state decisions — followed in 44 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 Mills v. Green · United States v. Trans-Missouri Freight Ass'n · Northern Securities Company v. United States · Armour Packing Company v. United States
Cited together with Weinstein v. Bradford · Roe v. Wade · United States v. W. T. Grant Co. · Moore v. Ogilvie · United States v. Munsingwear, Inc.
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 4,407 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“capable of repetition, yet evading review.”
290 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“This court has said a number of times that it will only decide actual controversies, and if, pending on appeal, something occurs without any fault of the defendant which renders it impossible, if our decision should be in favor of the plaintiff, to grant him effectual relief, the appeal will be dismissed. Jones v. Montague, 194 U.S. 147 [48 L.Ed. 913, 24 Sup.Ct.Rep. 611] and Richardson v. McChesney, decided November 28 of this term, 218 U.S. 487 [54 L.Ed. 1121, 31 Sup.Ct.Rep. 43]. But in those cases the acts sought to be enjoined had been completely executed, and there was nothing that the judgment of the court, if the suits had been entertained, could have affected. The case at bar comes within the rule announced in United States v. Trans-Missouri Freight Ass'n, 166 U.S. 290 , 308 [41 L.Ed. 1007, 1016, 17 Sup.Ct.Rep. 540] and Boise City Irr. & Land Co. v. Clark (C.C.App. 9 Cir.), [65 C.C.A. 399] 131 Fed. 415.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]he courts have entertained and decided such cases before ... because of the necessity or propriety of deciding some question of law presented which might serve to guide the [legislative] body when again called upon to act in the matter.”
5 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.