Railroad Commission of Texas v. Rowan & Nichols Oil Co.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

87 federal appellate · 18 district · 89 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 339 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Certainly in a domain of knowledge still shifting and growing, and in a field where judgment is therefore necessarily beset by the necessity of inferences bordering on conjecture even for those learned in the art, it would be presumptuous for courts, on the basis of conflicting expert testimony, to deem the view of the administrative tribunal, acting under legislative authority, offensive to the Fourteenth Amendment. * * * Plainly these are not issues for our arbitrament. * * * It is not for the federal courts to supplant the Commission's judgment even in the face of convincing proof that a different result would have been better.”

   8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Cities Service Co. v. Federal Energy Administration · Powerine Oil Co. v. Federal Energy Administration

2. “as thorny a problem as has challenged the ingenuity and wisdom of legislatures.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Trans-Western Petroleum, Inc. v. United States Gypsum Co. · 17 F. Supp. 2d 800 - United States v. Illinois Pollution Control Board

3. ““While the presence of a federal question may also open up state issues, Siler v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 213 U. S. 175 , the claim here founded on Texas law is derived from a statute requiring proration on a ‘reasonable basis.’ Vernon’s Texas Annotated Civil Statutes (1925), art. 6049c, § 7. The Texas decisions, insofar as they have been brought to our attention, do not make clear whether the local courts may exercise an independent judgment on what is ‘reasonable.’ Compare Brown v. Humble Oil & Refining Co., 126 Tex. 296 , 316; 83 S. W. 2d 935 ; 87 S. W. 2d 1069 . But, in any event, as we read the Texas cases, the standard of ‘reasonable, basis’ under the statute opens up the same range of inquiry as the respondent in effect asserted to exist in his claims under the Due Process Clause. These latter claims wé have found untenable. What ought not to be done by the federal courts' when the Due Process Clause is invoked ought not to be attempted by these courts under the guise of enforcing a state statute. Whether the respondent may still have a remedy in the state courts is for the Texas courts to determine, and is not foreclosed by the. denial, on the grounds we have indicated, of the extraordinary relief of an injunction in the federal courts.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Railroad Commission v. Rowan & Nichols Oil Co.