Schwegmann Bros. v. Calvert Distillers Corp.’s Empirical Analysis
341 U.S. 384 · 1951
Citation profile
601 federal appellate · 97 district · 221 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,499 later decisions (131 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Ernst & Ernst v. Hochfelder (1976), Brown Shoe Co. v. United States (1962)
601 federal appellate · 97 district · 221 state decisions — followed in 38 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
reviewedSchwegmann Bros. v. Calvert Distillers Corp. (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co. · Parker v. Brown · Kiefer-Stewart Co. v. Joseph E. Seagram & Sons, Inc. · Dr. Miles Medical Co. v. John D. Park & Sons Co.
Cited together with Parker v. Brown · Dr. Miles Medical Co. v. John D. Park & Sons Co. · Old Dearborn Distributing Co. v. Seagram-Distillers Corp. · National Labor Relations Board v. Fruit & Vegetable Packers & Warehousemen, Local 760 · California Retail Liquor Dealers Assn. v. Midcal Aluminum, Inc.
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 1,499 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]here are practical reasons why we should accept whenever possible the meaning which an enactment reveals on its face. Laws are intended for all of our people to live by; and the people go to law offices to learn what their rights under those laws are. Here is a controversy which affects every little merchant in many States. Aside from a few offices in the larger cities, the materials of legislative history are not available to the lawyer who can afford neither the cost of acquisition, the cost of housing, or the cost of repeatedly examining the whole congressional history. Moreover, if he could, he would not know any way of anticipating what would impress enough members of the Court to be controlling. To accept legislative debates to modify statutory provisions is to make the law inaccessible to a large part of the country.”
25 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“The fears and doubts of the opposition are no authoritative guide to the construction of legislation. It is the sponsors that we look to when the meaning of the statutory words is in doubt.”
16 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“* * * If a distributor and one or more retailers want to agree, combine, or conspire to fix a minimum price, they can do so if state law permits. Their contract, combination, or conspiracy — hitherto illegal — is made lawful. They can fix minimum prices pursuant to their contract or agreement with impunity. When they seek, however, to impose price fixing on persons who have not contracted or agreed to the scheme, the situation is vastly different. That is not price fixing by contract or agreement; that is price fixing by compulsion. That is not following the path of consensual agreement; that is resort to coercion "* * * Therefore, when a state compels retailers to follow a parallel price policy, it demands private conduct which the Sherman Act forbids. See Parker v. Brown, 317 U.S. 341 , 350, 63 S.Ct. 307, 313, 87 L.Ed. 315. Elimination of price competition at the retail level may, of course, lawfully result if a distributor successfully negotiates individual `vertical' agreements with all his retailers. But when retailers are forced to abandon price competition, they are driven into a compact in violation of the spirit of the proviso which forbids `horizontal' price fixing. A real sanction can be given the prohibitions of the proviso only if the price maintenance power granted a distributor is limited to voluntary engagements. * * *.”
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.