Walling v. Jacksonville Paper Co.’s Empirical Analysis
317 U.S. 564 · 1943
Citation profile
661 federal appellate · 127 district · 132 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,499 later decisions (66 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Skidmore v. Swift & Co. (1944), Dalehite v. United States (1953)
661 federal appellate · 127 district · 132 state decisions — followed in 25 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
reviewedFleming v. Jacksonville Paper Co. (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 29 U.S.C. § 201 (American Samoa Labor Standards Amendments of 1956)
Relies on Swift Company v. United States · Kirschbaum v. Walling US Arsenal Bldg Corporation · De Loach v. Crowley's, Inc. · Fleming v. Jacksonville Paper Co.
Cited together with Kirschbaum v. Walling US Arsenal Bldg Corporation · Overstreet v. North Shore Corp. · McLeod v. Threlkeld · Mitchell v. C. W. Vollmer & Co. · Phillips v. Walling US
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 1,499 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It is clear that the purpose of the Act was to extend federal control in this field throughout the farthest reaches of the channels of interstate commerce.”
28 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““As to the balance, we do not think the Administrator has sustained the burden which is on a petitioner of establishing error in a judgment which we are asked to set aside. We do not mean to imply that a wholesaler’s course of business based on anticipation of needs of specific customers, rather than on prior orders or contracts, might not at times be sufficient to establish that practical continuity in transit necessary to keep a movement of goods ‘in commerce’ within the meaning of the Act. It was said in Swift & Co. v. United States, 196 U.S. 375 , 398, 25 S.Ct. 276 , 280, 49 L.Ed. 518 , that ‘commerce among the states is not a technical legal conception, but a practical one, drawn from the course of business.’ While that observation was made apropos of the constitutional scope of the commerce power, it is equally apt as a starting point for inquiry whether a particular business is ‘in commerce’ within the meaning of this Act. We do not believe, however, that on this phase of the case such a course of business is revealed by this record. The evidence said to support it is of a wholly general character and lacks that particularity necessary to show that the goods in question were different from goods acquired and held by a local merchant for local disposition. “In this connection we cannot be unmindful that Congress in enacting this statute plainly indicated its purpose to leave local business to the protection of the states. S.Rep. No. 884, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 5; 83 ”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“is a practical continuity of movement from the manufacturers or suppliers without the state, through [a] warehouse and on to customers whose prior orders or contracts are being filled....”
7 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.