Cannon v. New Orleans’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 federal appellate · 8 district · 31 state decisions

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 112 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““It is a doctrine too well settled, and a practice too common and too essential to the interests of commerce and navigation to admit of a doubt, that for the use of such structures [i. e., wharves], erected by individual enterprise, and recognized everywhere as private property, a reasonable compensation can be exacted. And it may be safely admitted also that it is within the power of the state to regulate this compensation, so as to prevent extortion, a power which is often very properly delegated to the local municipal authority.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. The M. L. C. No. 10 · Ellerman v. Morgan's Louisiana & Texas Railroad & Steamship Co.

2. ““It is in proof that of the twenty miles and more of the levee and banks of the Mississippi within the City, not more than one tenth has any wharf, and that vessels land at various places where no such accommodations exist. The language of the ordinance covers landing anywhere within the city limits. The tax is, therefore, collectible for vessels which land at any point on the banks of the river, without regard to the existence of the wharves. The tax is also the same for a vessel which is moored in any part of the Port of New Orleans, whether she ties up to a wharf or not, or is located at the shore or in the middle of the river. A tax which is, by its terms, due from all vessels arriving and stopping in a port, without regard to the place where they may stop, whether it be in the channel of the stream, or out in the bay, or landed at a natural river bank, cannot be treated as a compensation for the use of a wharf This view is additionally enforced if, as stated by counsel for the plaintiff, in their argument, the Supreme Court of the State has decided that under the Act of 1843, of the Louisiana Legislature, no wharfage tax or duty can be levied or collected by the City. “We are of opinion that, upon the face of the ordinance itself, as applied to the recognized condition of the river and its banks within the City, the dues here claimed cannot be supported as a compensation for the use of the City’s wharves, but that it is a tax upon every vessel which stops, either by land”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 31 Md. App. 355 - Reinhardt v. Anne Arundel County

3. “If hardships arise in the enforcement of this principié, and the just necessities of a local commerce require a tax which is otherwise forbidden, it is presumed that Congress would not withhold its assent if properly informed and its consent requested. This is a much wiser course, and Congress is a much safer depositary of the final exercise of this important power than the ill-regulated and overtaxed towns and cities, which are not likely to look much beyond their own needs and their own interests.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Maher Terminals, LLC v. Port Authority of New York & New Jersey