Willink v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
240 U.S. 572 · 1916
Citation profile
23 federal appellate · 5 district · 9 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 108 later decisions (38 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2001 · most notably United States v. Appalachian Electric Power Co. (1940), United States v. Cress (1917)
23 federal appellate · 5 district · 9 state decisions
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 Philadelphia Co. v. Stimson · United States v. Chandler-Dunbar Water Power Co. · United States v. Arthur Lynah · Union Bridge Company v. United States · Pumpelly v. Green Bay Co.
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 108 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"This title of the owner of fast land upon the shore of a navigable river to the bed of the river * * * is subordinate to the public right of navigation, and however helpful in protecting the owner against the acts of third parties, is of no avail against the exercise of the great and absolute power of Congress over the improvement of navigable rivers. That power of use and control comes from the power to regulate commerce between the states and with foreign nations. It includes navigation and subjects every navigable river to the control of Congress. All means having some positive relation to the end in view which are not forbidden by some other provision of the Constitution are admissible. If, in the judgment of Congress, the use of the bottom of the river is proper for the purpose of placing therein structures in aid of navigation, it is not thereby taking private property for a public use, for the owner’s title was in its very nature subject to that use in the interest of public navigation.””
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.