Andrew G. Nelson, Inc. v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
1958
Citation profile
44 federal appellate · 71 district · 10 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 278 later decisions (8 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2004 · most notably Transamerican Freight Lines, Inc. v. Brada Miller Freight Systems, Inc. (1975), Sun Oil Company v. Federal Power Commission (1960)
44 federal appellate · 71 district · 10 state decisions
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.
Relationships
Applies 49 U.S.C. § 309
Relies on Alton Co v. United States · Callanan Road Improvement Co. v. United States · Noble v. United States · McGann 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 278 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““ * * * that the plain meaning of words in a commodity description is controlling in the absence of ambiguity or specialized usage in the trade. Neither of the parties believes the description here patently ambiguous, nor do we consider it to be such. Moreover, appellant is unwilling to say that the instant description is a term of art, while the Commission specifically asserts that it is not. Consequently, the ordinary meaning of the words used in the permit is determinative.””
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Commission interpretation of the meaning of a permit, being simply a definitive declaration of what rights existed from the very beginning under the permit, cannot be equated with modification, however, unless found to be clearly erroneous.””
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Appellant contends that the permit language cannot embody an intended use restriction because such restrictions were not formulated by the Commission until after issuance of Nelson’s permit and cannot be retroactively applied as a limitation on the same. The Commission challenges the assertion that the intended use restriction was never applied prior to issuance of the permit. It is unnecessary for us to resolve that question, however. Assuming that the intended use test first appeared as a commodity description technique after appellant’s predecessor obtained his permit, we think the Commission still free to interpret the permit as it has done. Its determination accords with the common, ordinary meaning of the words used, and in no way strains or artif icializes that meaning. If the controverted words fairly lend themselves now to the construction made here, they always have done so. Consequently, any retroactive application of the intended use test could work no prejudice to appellant; once it is determined that the ordinary meaning of the description is neither more nor less than the Commission’s interpretation, the manner in which the Commission arrived at its conclusion is not controlling.”
2 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.