Central Lumber Company v. State of South Dakota’s Empirical Analysis
226 U.S. 157 · 1912
Citation profile
33 federal appellate · 32 district · 145 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 323 later decisions (53 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2022 · most notably Nebbia v. People of State of New York (1934), United States v. Carolene Products Co. (1938)
33 federal appellate · 32 district · 145 state decisions — followed in 36 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 Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co. · Magoun v. Illinois Trust & Savings Bank · Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad v. McGuire · Orient Ins Co of Hartford Conn v. Daggs · Southern Railway Co. v. Greene
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 323 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““ ... may direct its law against what it deems the evil as it actually exists without covering the whole field of possible abuses, and it may do so none the less that the forbidden act does not differ in kind from those that are allowed. Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 US 61, 81 , 55 L ed 369, 378, 31 Sup Ct Rep 337, Ann Cas 1912C, 160; Missouri P. R. Co. v. Mackey, 127 US 205 , 32 L ed 107, 8 S Ct Rep 1161.””
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“may direct its law against what it deems the evil as it actually exists without covering the whole field of possible abuses, and it may do so none the less that the forbidden act does not differ in kind from those that are allowed. . . . If a class is deemed to present a conspicuous example of what the legislature seeks to prevent, the Fourteenth Amendment allows it to be dealt with although otherwise and merely logically not distinguishable from others not embraced in the law.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““If the Legislature thought that that particular manifestation of ability usually came from great corporations, whose power it deemed excessive, and for that reason did more harm than good in their state, and that there was no other case of frequent occurrence where the same could be said, we cannot review their economics or their facts.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Wiseman v. Tanner
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.