Union Bank & Trust Co. v. Phelps’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 federal appellate · 44 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 67 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““To accept the doctrine that as the states can only tax a federal instrumentality when permitted by Congress, therefore they cannot tax competitors of such instrumentalities within their general jurisdiction in some other fashion without violating the Fourteenth Amendment, would be both illogical and destructive of their proper independence. “Such instrumentalities are exempted from state taxation without the express consent of Congress, by the Federal Constitution. They are of a class wholly distinct from the property of ordinary corporations or individuals, and this fact cannot be disregarded by the state. If the state sees fit to tax unrestricted property within her jurisdiction, and to omit national bank shares, the classification cannot be said to be arbitrary and wholly unreasonable-; the basis of it is plain enough. It may be vastly more important for the state to omit national bank shares and tax ordinary moneyed cap ital according to a plan not permissible in respect of national bank shares, rather than conform to the standard prescribed by Congress. There is nothing to indicate that Congress ever supposed that mere establishment of a national bank within a state could upset the scheme for taxation, theretofore entirely proper, by producing conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment. This view would subject the taxing power of the state to the will of Congress far beyond what is necessary for the protection of federal agencies. The constitutional inhibition against taxin”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. City of Shelbyville v. Citizens Bk. of Shelbyville · Cherokee State Bank v. Wallace

2. ““We cannot say that the state Legislature exceeded its power to make reasonable classification when it directed that moneyed capital or the property and shares of building and loan associations, industrial loan corporations, industrial banks, mortgage companies, etox, should be exempt from ad valorem taxation or taxed on a different basis from the one prescribed for banks accepting deposits and doing a general commercial business, notwithstanding actual competition between them. “Mere competition between them is not enough to show two concerns must be burdened alike." The state Legislature reasonably might have determined that there was fair ground’ for distinction; and upon the record we may not hold that its action was arbitrary, capricious, or wholly unreasonable.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Bank of Texas v. Childs · Berry v. City of Fort Worth