Democratic Central Committee of The District of Columbia v. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Commission’s Empirical Analysis
485 F.2d 786 · 1973
Citation profile
65 federal appellate · 3 district · 35 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 144 later decisions — most recently August 2018 · most notably 552 F. Supp. 131 - United States v. American Telephone & Telegraph Co. (1983), Connecticut Light & Power Co. v. Department of Public Utility Control (1991)
65 federal appellate · 3 district · 35 state decisions — followed in 16 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.
Relationships
Applies 15 U.S.C. § 717C · 28 U.S.C. § 293
Relies on Securities and Exchange Commission v. Chenery Corporation · Burlington Truck Lines, Inc. v. United States · Permian Basin Area Rate Cases · Federal Power Commission v. Hope Natural Gas Co. · United States v. Morgan
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 144 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“One [Equitable principle] is the principle that the right to capital gains on utility assets is tied to the risk of capital losses. The other is the principle that he who bears the financial burden of particular utility activity should also reap the benefit resulting therefrom. The justice inherent in these principles is self-evident. ..... The allocative process, we have said, necessitates a delicate balancing of the interests of investors and consumers in light of the governing equitable principles. The constant effort must be a distribution of the gains as fairness and justice may require... . Consumers become entitled to capital gains on operating utility assets when they have discharged the burden of preserving the financial integrity of the stake which investors have in such assets... . And in appraising the equities, neither administrative nor judicial tribunals are at liberty to ignore economic reality. [29]”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Investors, we have concluded, are not automatically entitled to gains in value of operating utility properties simply as an incident of the ownership conferred by their investments. And it goes without saying that consumers do not succeed to such gains simply because they are users of the service furnished by the utility. Neither capital investment nor service consumption contributed in any special way to value-growth in utility assets. Rather, the values with which we are concerned have grown simply because of a rising market. “Investors and consumers thus start off on an equal footing, and the disposition of the growth must depend on other factors. We thus reach the dual critical inquiry: identification of the principles which must guide the allocation, as between investor and consumer groups, of appreciation in value of utility assets while in operating status; and application of those principles to Transit’s situation.” 485 F.2d at 805-6 .”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“no longer whether the law would put him in possession of the money if the transaction were a new one.”
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.