Alstate Const Co v. Durkin’s Empirical Analysis
1953
Citation profile
217 federal appellate · 26 district · 34 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 385 later decisions (22 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2010 · most notably Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. Federal Communications Commission (1969), Arizona v. Roberson (1988)
217 federal appellate · 26 district · 34 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
reviewedTobin v. Alstate Const. Co. (from Third Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 29 U.S.C. § 207 · 29 U.S.C. § 208
Relies on Kirschbaum v. Walling US Arsenal Bldg Corporation · McLeod v. Threlkeld · Overstreet v. North Shore Corp. · Kemble v. United States
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 385 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The Court reasons that if the man who is building, or repairing an interstate highway is ‘engaged in commerce’, the one who carries cement and gravel to him from a nearby pit is ‘engaged in the production of goods for commerce.’ Yet if that is true, how about the men who produce the tools for those who carry the cement and gravel or those who furnish the materials to make the tools used in producing the cement and gravel? Each would be essential to the highway worker ‘engaged in commerce.’ Yet the circle gets amazingly large once we say that ‘the production of goods for commerce’ includes the ‘production of goods for those engaged in commerce.’ ””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent“another ease in which we must define the scope of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The precise question is whether petitioners, who are engaged in maintaining or operating a toll road and a drawbridge over a navigable waterway which together constitute a medium for the interstate movement of goods and persons, are “engaged in commerce” within the meaning of §§ 6 and 7 of the Act, ... [where] “commerce” [is defined as] “commerce ... among the several States.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“We decline to repudiate an administrative interpretation of the Act which Congress refused to repudiate after being repeatedly urged to do so.”
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.