Whipple v. Commissioner’s Empirical Analysis
1963
Citation profile
336 federal appellate · 31 district · 17 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 937 later decisions (11 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. P Groetzinger (1987), United States v. Generes (1972)
336 federal appellate · 31 district · 17 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedWhipple v. Commissioner (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 26 U.S.C. § 23
Relies on Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Duberstein D Stanton · Deputy v. du Pont · Higgins v. Commissioner · United States v. Gilmore
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 937 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Devoting one’s time and energies to the affairs of a corporation is not of itself, and without more, a trade or business of the person so engaged. Though such activities may produce income, profit or gain in the form of dividends or enhancement in the value of an investment, this return is distinctive to the process of investing and is generated by the successful operation of the corporation’s business as distinguished from the trade or business of the taxpayer himself. When the only return is that of an investor, the taxpayer has not satisfied his burden of demonstrating that he is engaged in a trade or business since investing is not a trade or business and the return to the taxpayer, though substantially the product of his services, legally arises not from his own trade or business but from that of the corporation.”
50 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““For purposes of paragraph (1), the term ‘nonbusiness debt’ means a debt other than — ■ (A) a debt created or acquired (as the case may be) in connection with a trade or business of the taxpayer ; or (B) a debt the loss from the worthlessness of which is incurred in the taxpayer’s trade or business.””
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“the relation which the loss resulting from the debt's becoming worthless bears to the trade or business of the taxpayer”
8 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.