Meilink v. Unemployment Reserves Commission’s Empirical Analysis
314 U.S. 564 · 1942
Citation profile
37 federal appellate · 6 district · 16 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 134 later decisions (7 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2016 · most notably Smiley v. Citibank (South Dakota), N. A. (1996), United States v. Pink (1942)
37 federal appellate · 6 district · 16 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
reviewedUnemployment Reserves Commission v. Meilink (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on United States v. Childs · New York v. Jersawit · Ocean City v. Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia · In re Pressed Steel Car Co. of New Jersey
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 134 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It is common knowledge that interest rates vary not only according to the general use value of money but also according to the hazard of particular classes of loans. Delinquent taxpayers as a class are a poor credit risk; tax default, unless an incident of legitimate tax litigation, is, to the eye sensitive to credit indications, a signal of distress. A rate of interest on tax delinquencies which is low in comparison to the taxpayer’s borrowing rate — if he can borrow at all — is a temptation to use the state as a convenient, if involuntary, banker by the simple practice of deferring the payment of taxes. Another variable is the amount necessary to compensate for the trouble of handling the item. The legislature may include compensation to the state for the increased costs of administration in the exaction for delay in paying taxes without thereby changing it from interest to penalty-”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“as a fixed ad valorem amount taking no account of time”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Debts owing to the United States or any State or subdivision thereof as a penalty or forfeiture shall not be allowed, except for the amount of the pecuniary loss sustained by the act, transaction, or proceeding out of which the penalty or forfeiture arose, with reasonable and actual costs occasioned thereby and such interest as may have accrued thereon according to law.”
2 later decisions 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.