Chicago & Southern Air Lines, Inc. v. Waterman Steamship Corp.’s Empirical Analysis
333 U.S. 103 · 1948
Citation profile
717 federal appellate · 170 district · 55 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,428 later decisions (79 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2026 · most notably Baker v. Carr (1962), United States v. Nixon (1974)
717 federal appellate · 170 district · 55 state decisions — followed in 18 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
reviewedWaterman S. S. Corp. v. Civil Aeronautics Board (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Norwegian Nitrogen Products Co. v. United States · United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. · David Muskrat v. · Rochester Telephone Corporation v. United States
Cited together with Baker v. Carr · United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. · Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer · Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner · Oetjen v. Central Leather 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 1,428 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]he very nature of executive decisions as to foreign policy is political, not judicial. Such decisions are wholly confided by our Constitution to the political departments of the government, Executive and Legislative. They are delicate, complex, and involve large elements of prophecy. They are and should be undertaken only by those directly responsible to the people whose welfare they advance or imperil. They are decisions of a kind for which the Judiciary has neither aptitude, facilities nor responsibility and have long been held to belong in the domain of political power not subject to judicial intrusion or inquiry.”
86 later decisions quote this exact passage“[A]dministrative orders are not reviewable unless and until they impose an obligation, deny a right or fix some legal relationship as a consummation of the administrative process.”
30 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Judgments within the powers vested in courts by the Judiciary Article of the Constitution may not lawfully be revised, overturned or refused faith and credit by another Department of Government.”
12 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.