United States Tennessee Valley Authority v. Welch Same’s Empirical Analysis
327 U.S. 546 · 1946
Citation profile
160 federal appellate · 32 district · 47 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 445 later decisions (15 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2017 · most notably Berman v. Parker (1954), Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff (1984)
160 federal appellate · 32 district · 47 state decisions — followed in 15 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 ex rel. Tennessee Valley Authority v. Welch (from Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Social Security Board v. Nierotko · Kohl v. United States · American School of Magnetic Healing v. McAnnulty · Joslin Mfg Co v. City of Providence · Rindge Co v. Los Angeles County Rindge Co
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 445 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“until it is shown to involve an impossibility.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“* * * navigability, flood control, reforestation, marginal lands, and agricultural and industrial development of the whole Tennessee Valley. The T.V.A. was empowered to make contracts, purchase and sell property deemed necessary or convenient in the transaction of its business, and to build dams, reservoirs, transmission lines, power houses, and other structures. It was particularly admonished to cooperate with other governmental agencies-federal, state, and local — specifically in relation to the problem of “readjustment of the population displaced by the construction of dams, the acquisition of reservoir areas, the protection of watersheds, the acquisitions of rights-of-way, and other necessary acquisitions of land, in order to effectuate the purposes of the Act.” All of the Authority’s actions in these respects were to be directed towards “development of the natural resources of the Tennessee River drainage basin and of such adjoining territory as may be related to or materially affected by the development consequent to this Act * * * all for the general purpose of fostering an orderly and proper physical, economic, and social development of said areas * * To discharge its responsibilities the T.V.A. was granted “such powers as may be necessary or appropriate” for their exercise [United States ex rel. Tennessee Valley Authority v. Welch, 327 U.S. 546, 553 , 66 S.Ct. 715, 718 , 90 L.Ed. 843 (1946) ].”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“it is the function of Congress to decide what type of taking is for a public use and that the agency authorized to do the taking may do so to the full extent of its statutory authority.”
3 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.