American Tobacco Co. v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
328 U.S. 781 · 1946
Citation profile
1,208 federal appellate · 339 district · 153 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,921 later decisions (133 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2024 · most notably Burks v. United States (1978), United States v. Grinnell Corp. (1966)
1,208 federal appellate · 339 district · 153 state decisions — followed in 30 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
reviewedAmerican Tobacco Co. v. United States (from Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 15 U.S.C. § 2 (§ 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act)
Relies on Blockburger v. United States · Pinkerton v. United States · United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co. · United States v. Swift & Co.
Cited together with United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co. · United States v. E. I. Du Pont De Nemours & Co. · United States v. Griffith · Standard Oil Company of New Jersey v. United States · United States v. Grinnell Corp.
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 2,921 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“a unity of purpose or a common design and understanding, or a meeting of minds in an unlawful arrangement.”
66 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Attempted monopoly claims are aimed at `the employment of methods, means and practices which would, if successful, accomplish monopolization, and which, though falling short, nevertheless approach so close as to create a dangerous probability of it.'”
23 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“proof of Conspiracies which are reciprocally distinguishable from and independent of each other although the objects of the conspiracies may partially overlap.”
11 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.