United States v. Burns’s Empirical Analysis
54 F. 351 · 1893
Citation profile
9 federal appellate · 2 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 13 later decisions — most recently September 1974
9 federal appellate · 2 district ·
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
Relies on United States v. Cruikshank · Logan v. United States · United States v. Simmons
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 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““What is it that the congress has prohibited by the tenth section? All obstructions to the navigable capacity of the river are not prohibited, but only those ‘not affirmatively authorized by law.’ This legislation, in effect, concedes that which is well known to be true, that the necessities of commerce, the interests of the country, demand that, certain obstructions to the navigable capacity of.our rivers must be authorized and their creation permitted. Under certain circumstances, bridges, piers, docks, dams, and booms, the object, of which is to facilitate trade and commerce, become in many instances1 serious obstructions to the navigable capacity of our waters, and yet they are ‘affirmatively authorized by law.’ ””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“I think that the obstructions contemplated by the tenth section — those that have not been affirmatively authorized by law, and are therefore prohibited — are such obstructions as are permanent in their nature, as are created for special purposes, by the usual modes of construction. I cannot agree with the district attorney in his construction of the statute, and I cannot hold that it was the intention of congress, by this tenth section, to prohibit the floating of rafts, logs, timber, boats, and vessels, loose and adrift, in and upon the navigable waters of the United States.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“the creation of any obstructions, not affirmatively authorized by law, to the navigable capacity of any”
1 later decision 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.