Cedar Rapids Gas Light Company v. City of Cedar Rapids S’s Empirical Analysis
223 U.S. 655 · 1912
Citation profile
10 federal appellate · 44 district · 40 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 226 later decisions (64 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 1994 · most notably Federal Power Commission v. Natural Gas Pipeline Co. (1942), Colorado Interstate Gas Co. v. Federal Power Commission (1945)
10 federal appellate · 44 district · 40 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 Chicago Co v. City of Chicago · Smyth v. Ames · Munn v. Illinois · Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward · Monongahela Navigation Co. v. United States
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 226 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““We are of opinion that there was no contract on the part of the city that the price should be kept high enough to allow a discount for prompt payment. The general power reserved to regulate rates was limited only by the fourteenth amendment. The words relied upon by the plaintiff express its promise in consideration of the privileges granted, not a promise by the city. Knoxville Water Co. v. Knoxville, 189 U. S. 434 , 437 [ 23 Sup. Ct. 531 , 47 L. Ed. 887 ]. It is true that the ordinance was drawn as a contract, to be accepted, and it was accepted, by the' plaintiff; it contained reciprocal undertakings, the one in question being that of the plaintiff, as we have said, and it was subject to the power retained by the city to regulate rates. That power, it was expressly provided by the Iowa statute, was not to be abridged by ordinance, resolution, or contract Code 1897, § 725, Acts 22d Gen. Assem. (1888) c. 16.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““An adjustment of this sort, under a power to regulate rates, has to steer between ScyUa and Charybdis. On the one side if the franchise is taken to moan that the most profitable return that could be got, free from competition, is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, then the power to regulate' is null. On the other hand, if the power to regulate withdraws the protection of the amendment altogether, then the property is nought. This is not a matter of economic theory, but of fair interpretation of a bargain. Neither extreme can have been meant. A midway between them must be met.””
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.