Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line Co. v. Federal Power Commission’s Empirical Analysis
324 U.S. 635 · 1945
Citation profile
205 federal appellate · 12 district · 36 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 342 later decisions (17 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2017 · most notably Federal Power Commission v. Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corp. (1961), Federal Power Commission v. Colorado Interstate Gas Co. (1955)
205 federal appellate · 12 district · 36 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
reviewedPanhandle Eastern Pipe Line Co. v. Federal Power Commission (from Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 15 U.S.C. § 717 · 16 U.S.C. § 792 (§ 1 of the Federal Power Act of 1920)
Relies on Federal Power Commission v. Hope Natural Gas Co. · Neirbo Co. v. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp. · Colorado Interstate Gas Co. v. Federal Power Commission · United States v. California Coöperative Canneries
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 342 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“We agree that the Commission must make a separation of the regulated and unregulated business when it fixes the interstate wholesale rates of a company whose activities embrace both. Otherwise the profits or losses, as the case may be, of the unregulated business would be assigned to the regulated business and the Commission would transgress the jurisdictional lines which Congress wrote into the Act.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(t)he Commission, while it lacks authority to fix rates for direct industrial sales, may take those rates into consideration when it fixes the rates for interstate wholesale sales which are subject to its jurisdiction.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The Commission stated on this phase of the case: `The evidence discloses that the respondents' business is exceptionally free from serious business hazards. The gas supply is assured for at least thirty to thirty-five more years. We have made ample provision in the annual depreciation allowance for the restoration of the capital investment in the property over the claimed life of the gas supply. The respondents' markets are rapidly expanding and embrace the large metropolitan area of Detroit, which alone takes 40 per cent of the entire output under a long-term contract. Panhandle Eastern's president testified that the demand for service is so great that within the next year the respondents will be called upon to sell every cubic foot of gas that can possibly be delivered through the lines, and that the capacity factor will increase from 70 per cent to 90 per cent. 182 "`It is likewise apparent from respondents' own evidence that Panhandle Eastern has been able to raise considerable capital at low cost. Only recently it successfully completed a financing program at remarkably low rates which resulted in a substantial reduction in its annual cost of capital. * * *'”
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.