Barwise v. Sheppard’s Empirical Analysis
299 U.S. 33 · 1936
Citation profile
3 district · 72 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 91 later decisions (8 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 2004 · most notably Carmichael v. Southern Coal & Coke Co. (1937), Exxon Corporation v. Eagerton Exchange Oil and Gas Corporation (1983)
3 district · 72 state decisions — followed in 16 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 The Providence Bank v. Alpheus Billings · Henderson Bridge Co v. City of Henderson · Winthrop Astor Chanler v. Otto Kelsey · Kehrer v. Stewart · Clement National Bank v. State of Vermont
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 91 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]he lease was made in subordination to the power of the State to tax the production of oil and to apportion the tax between the lessors and the lessee. . . . Plainly no stipulation in the lease can be of any avail as against the power of the state to impose the tax, prescribe who shall be under a duty to the state to pay it, and fix the time and mode of payment. And this is true even though it be assumed to be admissible for the lessors and lessee to stipulate as to who, as between themselves, shall ultimately bear the tax.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““A state statute imposing on the production of oil a tax to be borne ratably by all interested parties, including royalty interests, and charging the active producer or purchaser of oil where sold in the pipe lines with a primary duty to pay the full tax, and authorizing and requiring him to withhold from royalty or purchase money due interested parties, the proportionate tax due from them, does not, in imposing the tax upon a lessor who had executed a lease prior to its enactment, impair the obligation of the lessee thereunder to deliver to the credit of the lessor free of cost in the pipe line an eighth of the oil produced, even though the law in force when the lease was made and for some years thereafter laid a production tax upon the lessee alone, and under the present law a part of the tax is imposed on the lessor, and the part imposed on the lessee is less than what would fall on him under the earlier law.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“It is true that the law in force when the lease was made and for some years thereafter laid a production tax on the lessee alone, and it is equally true that under the act of 1933 a part of the tax is imposed on the lessors and the part imposed on the lessee is less than what would fall on him under the earlier law. But the State's power in the matter was in no way circumscribed by the earlier law. That law was subject to change at any time through a further exertion of the taxing power; and the lease presented no obstacle to such a change.”
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.