Zellerbach Paper Co. v. Helvering’s Empirical Analysis
293 U.S. 172 · 1934
Citation profile
98 federal appellate · 17 district · 23 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 487 later decisions (35 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2021 · most notably Badaracco v. Commissioner (1984), Helvering v. Tex-Penn Oil Co. (1937)
98 federal appellate · 17 district · 23 state decisions
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.
Appellate journey
reviewedthe decision below (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Norwegian Nitrogen Products Co. v. United States · United States v. Memphis Cotton Oil Co. · Johnson v. Manhattan Railway Co. · Florsheim Bros. Drygoods Co. v. United States · National Lead Co. v. United States
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 487 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[p]erfect accuracy or completeness is not necessary to rescue a return from nullity, if it purports to be a return, is sworn to as such..., and evinces an honest and genuine endeavor to satisfy the law.”
18 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Supplement and correction in such circumstances will not take from a taxpayer, free from personal fault, the protection of a term of limitation already running for his benefit.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]he return exacted by the [predecessor statute to § 6501], the one that in the absence of fraud is to start the term of the limitation . . . is the return filed by the taxpayer at the close of the fiscal year, though supplementary information may modify or add to it.”
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.