Ohio Tax Cases’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

24 federal appellate · 47 district · 57 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 241 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““It is contended that the act arbitrarily discriminates against plaintiffs in error and other railroad companies in that (a) it does not include all other public utilities carrying on business within the state; those omitted, as is said, being grain elevators, stockyards, ferries, bridge companies, and innkeepers; and (b), the law does not operate uniformly among the utilities that are taxed, since, on electric light, gas, natural gas, waterworks, telephone, messenger or signal, union depot, heating, coaling and water transportation companies, the tax amounts to 1.2 per cent, of gross intrastate receipts, as to suburban and interurban railroads it is fixed at 1.2 per cent, of gross intrastate earnings, and on express and telegraph companies it is 2 por cent.; while on railroads, including plaintiffs in error, it is 4 per cent, of such earnings, and the same on pipe-line companies. “Both of these contentions turn upon the familiar question of classification, concerning which so much has been written. We agree with the court below that whether the question be considered in view of the uniformity and equality provisions of the Ohio Constitution, or the ‘equal protection’ clause of the 14th Amendment, the result is the same; it cannot be said that the classification rests upon no reasonable and sufficient basis of distinction.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. In Re Assessment of Sales Tax Against Knapp

2. ““Both of these contentions turn upon the familiar question of classification, concerning which so much has been written. We agree with the court below that whether the question be considered in view of the uniformity and equality provisions of the Ohio Constitution, or the ‘equal protection’ clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the result is the same; it cannot be'said that the classification rests upon no reasonable and sufficient basis of distinction. State ex rel. Taylor v. Guilbert, 70 Ohio St. 253 , 71 N. E. 636 , 1 Ann. Cas. 25; Kentucky R. Tax Cases, 115 U. S. 321 , 337, 6 Sup. Ct. 57, 29 L. Ed. 414, 419 ; Bell’s Gap R. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 134 U. S. 232, 237 , 10 Sup. Ct. 533, 33 L. Ed. 892, 895 ; Magoun v. Illinois Trust & Sav. Bank, 170 U. S. 283, 293 , 18 Sup. Ct. 594, 42 L. Ed. 1037, 1042 ; Southwestern Oil Co. v. Texas, 217 U. S. 114, 121 , et seq., 30 Sup. Ct. 496, 54 L. Ed. 688, 692 .””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. In Re Gross Production Tax of Wolverine Oil Co.

3. ““° It was not intended to hold that tho courts as final arbiters might, overthrow a law imposing a tax on privileges and franchises merely because in isolated cases such law might Impose a hardship, but only that those excise laws whose general operation is confiscatory and oppressive are unconstitutional.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Keeney v. Dominion Coal Co.