United States v. Willow River Power Co.’s Empirical Analysis
324 U.S. 499 · 1945
Citation profile
95 federal appellate · 33 district · 76 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 447 later decisions (49 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2019 · most notably Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City (1978), Kaiser Aetna v. United States (1979)
95 federal appellate · 33 district · 76 state decisions — followed in 17 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 Monongahela Navigation Co. v. United States · United States v. Appalachian Electric Power Co. · United States v. Chandler-Dunbar Water Power Co. · United States v. Cress · Transportation Company v. Chicago
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 447 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“But not all economic interests are 'property rights'; only those economic advantages are 'rights' which have the law back of them, and only when they are so recognized may courts compel others to forbear from interfering with them or to compensate for their invasion.”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“It has been held in nearly every state in the Union that 'there can be no recovery for damages to abutting property resulting from a mere change of grade in the street in front of it, there being no physical injury to the property itself, and the change being authorized by law.'”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““80th Corig., 1st Sess. “S. 662 “Be it enacted by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized and directed to pay, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to the Willow River Power Company, of Hudson, Wisconsin, the sum of $31,160, in full satisfaction of its claim against the United States for compensation for damages resulting from diminution of the generative capacity of its hydroelectric plant located near the confluence of the Willow River and the St. Croix River due to a rise in the waters of the St. Croix River caused by the erection by the United States of a dam across the Mississippi River, near Red Wing, Minnesota, in 1938: Provided, That no part of the amount appropriated in this Act in excess of 10 per centum thereof shall be paid or delivered to or received by. any agent or attorney on account of services rendered in connection with this claim, and the same shall be unlawful, any contract to the contrary notwithstanding. Any person violating the provisions of this Act shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction thereof shall be fined in any sum not exceeding $1,000.””
1 later decision 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.