Iowa Power and Light Company v. Burlington Northern Inc Iowa Power and Light Company’s Empirical Analysis
647 F.2d 796 · 1981
Citation profile
38 federal appellate · 5 district · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 63 later decisions — most recently April 2015 · most notably Fray v. Omaha World Herald Company (1993), Daisy Manufacturing Co. v. NCR Corp. (1994)
38 federal appellate · 5 district · 2 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.
Relationships
Relies on Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York · Securities and Exchange Commission v. Chenery Corporation Same · Bradley v. School Board of City of Richmond · United States v. Munsingwear, Inc. · County of Los Angeles v. Davis
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 63 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(n)othing in this section shall affect the rights of the parties to challenge the existence of (a pre-Act) contract,”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The whole or part of an agency statement of general or particular applicability and future effect designed to implement, interpret or prescribe law or policy, or describing the organization, procedure, or practice requirements of an agency and includes the approval or prescription for the future of rates.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“not 'simply a general pronouncement of the broad policy considerations which will motivate the Commission as it addresses itself to its appointed tasks ...' but rather, 'is in reality a flat rule of eligibility.' " Id. at 531-32 . 47 Comparing the language of the contract rates policy statement which appears in Attachment A, with the criteria set forth in American Bus, we are of the opinion that to the extent that the policy statement announces the ICC's intention to accord weight to pre-1978 agreements, it cannot be said to impose a flat rule inflexibly governing the exercise of Commission discretion. 9 Given the history of the Commission's authority over railroad rates, its responsibility under the 4R Act to make an independent determination of rate reasonableness, and the fact that private agreements have been accorded evidentiary value in numerous past ICC decisions, we conclude that the contract rates policy statement imposes no new obligations which might invoke the requirement or rule-making under the APA. "The statement in no way established a binding norm for future rate cases, but instead left the Commission free to exercise considerable discretion in considering whether, and to what extent, to enforce contracts prior to 1978.”
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.