Jones v. City of Portland’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

12 federal appellate · 11 district · 79 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 152 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[W]hile the ultimate authority to determine the validity of legislation under the Fourteenth Amendment is rested in this court, local conditions are of such varying character that what is or is not a public use in a particular state is manifestly a matter respecting which local authority, legislative and judicial, has peculiar facilities for securing accurate information.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Common Cause v. State · Toebe v. City of Munising

2. “The authority to furnish light and water by means of municipally owned plants has long been sanctioned as the accomplishment of a public purpose justifying taxation with a view to making provision for their establishment and operation. The right of a municipality to promote the health, comfort and convenience of its inhabitants by the establishment of a plant for the distribution of natural gas for heating purposes was sustained, and we think properly so, in State v. Toledo , 48 Oh. St. 112 ( 26 N.E. 1061 , 11 L.R.A. 729 ). We see no reason why the State may not, if it sees fit to do so, authorize a municipality to furnish heat by such means as are necessary and such systems as are proper for its distribution. Heat is as indispensable to the health and comfort of the people as is light or water. In any event we are not prepared to say that when a State authorizes a municipality to tax with a view to providing heat at cost to the inhabitants of the city, and that purpose is declared by the highest court of the State to be a public one, the property of a citizen who is taxed to effect such purpose is taken in violation of rights secured by the Constitution of the United States.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Toebe v. City of Munising

3. “Answering the objection that sustaining the act in question opens the door to the exercise of municipal authority to conduct other lines of business and commercial activity to the destruction of private business, the court said ( 111 Me. 486 , 500 ):”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Toebe v. City of Munising