Commissioner v. Gordon’s Empirical Analysis
1968
Citation profile
149 federal appellate · 15 district · 10 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 319 later decisions (5 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2018 · most notably United States v. Paradise (1987), United States v. Davis (1970)
149 federal appellate · 15 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedCommissioner of Internal Revenue v. Irving Gordon and Margaret Gordon, Irving Gordon and Margaret Gordon v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Helvering v. Horst · Burnet v. Sanford & Brooks Co. · Palmer v. Commissioner · American Commercial Lines, Inc. v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad
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 319 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“if one transaction is to be characterized as a 'first step' there must be a binding commitment to take the later steps.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Section 355 provides that certain distributions of securities of corporations controlled by the distributing corporation do not result in recognized gain or loss to the distributee shareholders. The requirements of the section are detailed and specific, and must be applied with precision. It is no doubt true, as the Second Circuit emphasized, that the general purpose of the section was to distinguish corporate fission from the distribution of earnings and profits. However, although a court may have reference to this purpose when there is a genuine question as to the meaning of one of the requirements Congress has imposed, a court is not free to disregard requirements simply because it considers them redundant or unsuited to achieving the general purpose in a particular case. Congress has abundant power to provide that a corporation wishing to spin off a subsidiary must, however bona fide its intentions, conform the details of a distribution to a particular set of rules.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[s]ince the record leaves no disputed issue of fact with respect to this question, we find it proper to decide it here without reference to a tryer of fact.”
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.