Western Live Stock v. Bureau of Revenue’s Empirical Analysis
303 U.S. 250 · 1938
Citation profile
60 federal appellate · 13 district · 610 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 907 later decisions (145 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2025 · most notably Maryland v. Louisiana (1981), Complete Auto Transit, Inc. v. Brady (1977)
60 federal appellate · 13 district · 610 state decisions — followed in 42 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 Baldwin v. G. A. F. Seelig, Inc. · Paul v. Virginia · Hooper v. People of State of California · Pullman's Palace-Car Co v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
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 907 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It was not the purpose of the commerce clause to relieve those engaged in interstate commerce from their just share of state tax burden even though it increases the cost of doing the business. “Even interstate business must pay its way,” [authorities omitted] and the bare fact that one is carrying on interstate commerce does not relieve him from many forms of state taxation which add to the cost of his business.”
44 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““. . . Nor is taxation of a local business or occupation which is separate and distinct from the transportation and intercourse which is interstate commerce forbidden merely because in the ordinary course such transportation or intercourse is induced or occasioned by the business. ...” 303 U.S. at 253 , 58 S.Ct. at 547 .”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“So far as the advertising rates reflect a value attributable to the maintenance of a circulation of the magazine interstate, we think the burden on the interstate business is too remote and too attenuated to call for a rigidly logical application of the doctrine that gross receipts from interstate commerce may not be made a measure of a tax. Experience has taught that the opposing demands that the commerce shall bear its fair share of local taxation, and that it shall not, on the other hand, be subjected to multiple tax burdens merely because it is interstate commerce, are not capable of reconciliation by resort to the syllogism. Practical rather than logical distinctions must be sought..”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.