United States v. Wrightwood Dairy Co.’s Empirical Analysis
315 U.S. 110 · 1942
Citation profile
284 federal appellate · 36 district · 37 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 617 later decisions (70 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Ernst & Ernst v. Hochfelder (1976), United States v. United Mine Workers of America (1947)
284 federal appellate · 36 district · 37 state decisions — followed in 11 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedUnited States v. Wrightwood Dairy Co. (from Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Consolidated Edison Co of New York v. National Labor Relations Board · M'Culloch v. State of Maryland · National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. · Gibbons v. Ogden · Ala Schechter Poultry Corporation 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 617 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[Congress's power] extends to those activities intrastate which so affect interstate commerce or the exercise of the power of Congress over it as to make regulation of them appropriate means to the attainment of a legitimate end, the exercise of the granted power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce.”
25 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““... the marketing of intrastate milk which competes with that shipped interstate would tend seriously to break down price regulation of the latter. We conclude that the national power to regulate the price of milk moving interstate into the Chicago, Illinois, marketing area, extends to such control over intrastate transactions there as is necessary and appropriate to make the regulation of the interstate commerce effective; and that it includes authority to make like regulations for the marketing of intrastate milk whose sale and competition with the interstate milk affects its price structure so as in turn to affect adversely the Congressional regulation.” Id. at 527.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““We think it clear that Congress, by the provisions of § 8c(l) [7 U.S.C.A. § 608c(l)], conferred upon the Secretary authority to regulate the handling of intrastate products which by reason of its competition with the handling of the interstate milk so affects that commerce as substantially to interfere with its regulation by Congress; and that the statute so read is a constitutional exercise of the commerce power.””
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.