Thompson Willson v. The Black Bird Creek Marsh Company’s Empirical Analysis
27 U.S. 245 · 1829
Citation profile
23 federal appellate · 17 district · 67 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 301 later decisions (89 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2023 · most notably United States v. Lopez (1995), Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen (1917)
23 federal appellate · 17 district · 67 state decisions — followed in 24 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 Attorney-General v. Utica Insurance · Jerome v. Ross · Livingston v. Van Ingen · Corning v. Lowerre
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 301 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Measures calculated to produce these objects, provided they do not come Into collision with the powers of the general government, are undoubtedly within those which are reserved to the states. But the measure authorized by this act stops a navigable creek, and must be supposed to abridge the rights of those who have been accustomed to use it. But this abridgment, unless it comes in conflict with the Constitution or a law of the United States, is an affair between the government of Delaware and its citizens, of which this court can take no cognizance. The counsel for the plaintiffs in error insist that it coinés in conflict with the power of the United States ‘to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states.’ If Congress had passed any act which bore upon the case,' any act in execution of the power to regulate commerce, the object of which was to control state legislation over those small navigable creeks into which the tide flows, and which abound throughout the lower country of the .middle and lower states—we should feel not much difficulty in saying that a state law coming to conflict with such act would be void. But Congress has passed no such act.””
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““The act of assembly by which the plaintiffs were authorized to construct their dam shows plainly that this is one of those many creeks passing through a deep, level marsh adjoining the Delaware, up which the tide flows -for some distánce. The value of the property on its banks must be enhanced by ex- eluding the water from the marsh, and the health of the inhabitants probably improved. Measures calculated to produce these objects, provided they do not come into collision with the powers of the general government, are undoubtedly within those which are reserved to the states. But the measure authorized by this act stops a navigable creek, and must be supposed to abridge the rights of those who have been accustomed to use it. But this abridgment, unless it comes in conflict with the constitution or a law of the United States, is an affair between the government of Delaware and its citizens, of which this court can take no cognizance.””
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.