Provident Institution v. Massachusetts’s Empirical Analysis
73 U.S. 611 · 1867
Citation profile
11 federal appellate · 2 district · 46 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 122 later decisions (26 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 1990 · most notably Flint v. Stone Tracy Co. (1911), Coe v. Town of Errol (1886)
11 federal appellate · 2 district · 46 state decisions — followed in 20 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
Relies on Leffingwell v. Warren
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 122 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Nothing can be more certain in legal decision than that the privileges and franchises of a private corporation, and all trades and avocations by which the citizens acquire a livelihood, may be taxed by a State for the support of the state government. Authority to that effect resides in the State independently of the Federal Government, and is wholly unaffected by the fact that the corporation or individual has or has not made investment in Federal securities.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““ ‘All subjects over which the sovereign power of the state extends a're objects of taxation; but those over which it does not extend are, upon the soundest principles, exempt from taxation.’ ‘The sovereignty of a state extends to everything which exists by its own authority, or is introduced by its permission,’ but not ‘to those means which are employed by Congress to carry into execution powers conferred on that body by the people of the United States.’ ””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“Franchise taxes are levied direct!’by an act of the legislature, and the corporations are required to pay the amount into the State treasir y. They differ from property taxes, as levied for state and municipal purposes^ iff the basis prescribed for computing the amount, in tlieunaniiér of assessment and in the mode of collection.”
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.