Monamotor Oil Co. v. Johnson’s Empirical Analysis
292 U.S. 86 · 1934
Citation profile
17 federal appellate · 3 district · 123 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 214 later decisions (47 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2011 · most notably Henneford v. Silas Mason Co. (1937), Miller Bros. v. Maryland (1954)
17 federal appellate · 3 district · 123 state decisions — followed in 29 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 Brown v. Maryland · Nashville St Ry v. Wallace · Sonneborn Bros. v. Cureton · Bowman v. Continental Oil 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 214 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“‘ ‘ There is no substance in the claim that the statutes impose a burden upon interstate commerce, contrary to the prohibition of Article I, Section 8 of the federal Constitution. The appellant insists that the tax is a direct tax on motor vehicle fuel imported. The court below concluded that the law laid an excise upon the use of fuel for the propulsion of vehicles on the highways of the state. The state officials have administered the tax on this theory. We think this the correct view. The levy is not on property but upon a specified use of property. Altitude Oil Co. v. People, 70 Colo. 452 , 202 Pac. 180 ; Standard Oil Co. v. Brodie, 153 Ark. 114 , 239 S. W. 753 . It is not laid upon the importer for the privilege of importing (compare Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419 , 6 L. Ed. 678 ; Bowman v. Continental Oil Co., 256 U. S. 642, 647 , 65 L. Ed. 1139, 1144 , 41 S. Ct. 606 ), but falls on the local use after interstate commerce has ended. Compare Sonneborn Bros. v. Cureton (Sonneborn Bros. v. Keeling), 262 U. S. 506 , 67 L. Ed. 1095 , 43 S. Ct. 643 ; Nashville, C. & St. L. R. Co. v. Wallace, 288 U. S. 249 , 77 L. Ed. 730 , 53 S. Ct. 345 , 87 A. L. R. 1191; Edelman v. Boeing Air Transport, 289 U. S. 249 , 77 L. Ed. 1155 , 53 S. Ct. 591 . The statute in terms imposes the tax on motor vehicle fuel used or otherwise disposed of in the state. Instead of collecting the tax from the user through its own officers, the state makes the distributor its agent for that purpose. This is ”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““The statute obviously was not intended to reach transactions in interstate commerce, but to tax the use of motor fuel after it had come to rest in Iowa, and the requirement,that the appellant as the shipper into Iowa shall, as agent of the state, report and pay the tax on the gasoline thus coming into the state for use by others on fvhom the tax falls imposes no unconstitutional burden either upon interstate commerce or upon the appellant.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“that the statutes properly construed lay no tax whatever upon distributors, but make of them mere collectors from users of motor vehicle fuel”
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.