Moyor and Board of Aldermen of Town of Vidalia v. McNeely’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

15 federal appellate · 12 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 39 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““It will be observed that the question is not simply as to the power of the state to prevent extortion and to fix reasonable ferry rates from the Michigan shore; it is not as to the validity of a mere police regulation governing the manner of conducting the business in order to secure safety and the public convenience. . . . The ordinance goes beyond this. The ordinance requires a municipal license; and the fundamental question is whether, in the circumstances shown, the state, or the city, acting under its authority, may make its consent a condition precedent to the prosecution of the business. If the state, or the city, may make its consent necessary, it may withhold it. . . . Has the state of Michigan the right to make this commercial intercourse a matter of local privilege, to demand that it shall not be carried on without its permission, and to exact as the price of its consent—if it chooses to give it—the payment of a license fee? “This question must be answered in the negative. . . . “The fundamental principle involved has been applied by this court in recent decisions in a great variety of circumstances, and it must be taken to be firmly established that one otherwise enjoying full capacity for the purpose cannot be compelled to take out a local license for the mere privilege of carrying on interstate or foreign commerce. . . . “Assuming that, by reason of the local considerations pertinent to the operation of ferries, there exists, in the absence of Federal action, a”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Tri-State Ferry Company v. Birney

2. ““It must be conceded that the designation of places for ferry landings along the river bank within the town limits is a function which primarily belongs to the town and is not ordinarily subject to judicial control. But here the town proceeded on the erroneous theory that the complainant’s ferry need not be considered. Not only was no new landing place assigned for his ferry, but the place theretofore and then in actual use for it was assigned to the competing ferry. In this the town plainly deviated from its duty in the premises, for it was under the same legal obligation to accord a landing place to one ferry as to the other.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Tri-State Ferry Company v. Birney

3. ““This court always has recognized that ferries operated across boundary waters between states simply as a means of transit from shore to shore should be deemed instruments of local convenience, and subject to local regulation, to the extent that, in the absence of congressional action, each state may act with respect to the ferriage from its shore. ’ ’”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Tri-State Ferry Company v. Birney