People's Railroad v. Memphis Railroad’s Empirical Analysis
77 U.S. 38 · 1869
Citation profile
5 federal appellate · 5 district · 19 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 47 later decisions (7 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 1988 · most notably Frost v. Corporation Commission (1929), Blair v. City of Chicago (1906)
5 federal appellate · 5 district · 19 state decisions — followed in 10 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 Beekman v. Saratoga & Schenectady Rail Road · Walker v. Devereaux
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 47 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Such corporations” (referring to municipalities) “are usually invested with the power to lay out, open, alter, repair and amend streets within the corporate limits; but the rule is well settled that by virtue of those powers, without more, they can not grant to an association of persons, the right to construct and maintain, for a term of years, a railway in one of the streets of the municipality for the transportation of passengers for private gain. * * * Municipal corporations are doubtless invested with subordinate legislative powers to be exercised in the passage of ordinances for local purposes, connected with the public good, but they are merely derivative and are subject at all times to the legislative control.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““Snell corporations arc usually invested witli tlie power to lay out, open, alter, repair, and amend streets witliin tlie corporate limits; hut the rule is well settled that by virtue of those powers, without more, they cannot grant to an association of persons the right to construct, and maintain for a term of years, a railway in one of the streets of tlie municipality, for the transportation of passengers for private gain, and that resolution or ordinance of the authorities granting such a right is void.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““Special powers are given to such corporations to lay out, open, and repair streets, as a trust to be held and exercised for the benefit of the public, from time to time, as occasion may require; and the general rule is that those powers cannot be delegated to others, nor be effectually abridged, by any act of the municipal corporation, without tlie express authority of the legislature.””
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.