Eastern Railroad Presidents Conference v. Noerr Motor Freight, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis
1961
Citation profile
1,233 federal appellate · 612 district · 590 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 4,296 later decisions (100 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Buckley v. Valeo (1976), Broadrick v. Oklahoma (1973)
1,233 federal appellate · 612 district · 590 state decisions — followed in 42 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
reviewedNoerr Motor Freight, Inc. v. Eastern Railroad Presidents Conference (from Third Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 15 U.S.C. § 1 (§ 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act) · 15 U.S.C. § 15 (§ 4 of the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914) · 15 U.S.C. § 2 (§ 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act)
Relies on Parker v. Brown · United States v. Harriss · Standard Oil Company of New Jersey v. United States · Apex Hosiery Co. v. Leader
Cited together with United Mine Workers v. Pennington · California Motor Transport Co. v. Trucking Unlimited · Parker v. Brown · United Mine Workers of America v. M Pennington Local Union No 189 Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America · Professional Real Estate Investors, Inc. v. Columbia Pictures Industries, 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 4,296 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In a representative democracy such as this, these branches of government act on behalf of the people and, to a very large extent, the whole concept of representation depends upon the ability of the people to make their wishes known to their representatives.”
124 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a mere sham to cover what is actually nothing more than an attempt to interfere directly with the business relationships of a competitor.”
118 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The right of the people to inform their representatives in government of their desires with respect to the passage or enforcement of laws cannot properly be made to depend upon their intent in doing so.”
59 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.