National Bellas Hess Incorporated v. Department of Revenue of State of Illinois’s Empirical Analysis
1967
Citation profile
33 federal appellate · 9 district · 436 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 578 later decisions (41 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2021 · most notably Quill Corporation v. North Dakota Heitkamp (1992), Commonwealth Edison Co. v. Montana (1981)
33 federal appellate · 9 district · 436 state decisions — followed in 40 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. A case is still cited after being overruled — to note the reversal, distinguish it, or in dissent. 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
Relies on Wisconsin v. J. C. Penney Co. · Northwestern States Portland Cement Co. v. Minnesota · Freeman v. Hewit · Miller Bros. v. Maryland
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 578 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“And in determining whether a state tax falls within the confines of the Due Process Clause, the Court has said that the 'simple but controlling question is whether the state has given anything for which it can ask return.' Wisconsin v. J. C. Penney Co., 311 U.S. 435 , 444 (61 S.Ct. 246, 85 L.Ed. 267).”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“*** created a safe harbor for vendors 'whose only connection with customers in the [taxing] state is by common carrier or the United States mail.' Under Bellas Hess such vendors are free from 4 January Term, 1995 state-imposed duties to collect sales and use taxes.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““In order to uphold the power of Illinois to impose use tax burdens on National in this case, we would have to repudiate totally the sharp distinction which these and other decisions have drawn between mail order sellers with retail outlets, solicitors, or property within a State, and those who do no more than communicate with customers in the State'by mail or common carrier as part of a general interstate business. But this basic distinction, which until now has been generally recognized by the state taxing authorities, is a valid one, and we decline to obliterate it.” (Emphasis added.) 386 U.S. at 758 , 87 S.Ct. at 1392 .”
4 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.