Loan Association v. Topeka’s Empirical Analysis
87 U.S. 655 · 1874
Citation profile
47 federal appellate · 27 district · 212 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 480 later decisions (95 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2017 · most notably Griswold v. State of Connecticut (1965), Flast v. Cohen (1968)
47 federal appellate · 27 district · 212 state decisions — followed in 42 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 Treat v. Jemison · Hanson v. Vernon · Lyon v. Comstock
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 480 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]he merchant, the mechanic, the innkeeper, the banker, the builder, the steamboat owner, are equally promoters of the public good, and equally deserving the aid of the citizens by forced contributions. No line can be drawn in favor of the manufacturer which would not open the coffers of the public treasury to the importunities of two-thirds of the businessmen of the city or town. Loan Association, supra, 87 U.S. (20 Wall.) at 665 .”
14 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““If these municipal corporations, which 'are in fact subdivisions of the state, and which for many reasons are vested with quasi legislative powers, have a fund or other property out of which they can pay the debts which they contract, without resort to taxation, it may be within the power of the legislature of the state to authorize them to use it in aid of projects strictly private or personal, but which would, in a secondary manner, contribute to the public good; or where there is property or money vested in a corporation of the kind for a particular use, as public worship or charity, the legislature may pass laws authorizing them to make contracts in reference to this property, and incur debts payable from that source. But such instances are few and exceptional, and the proposition is a very broad one that debts contracted by municipal corporations must be paid, if paid at all, out of taxes which they may lawfully levy, and that all contracts creating debts to be paid in future, not limited to payment from some other source, imply an obligation to pay by taxation. It follows that in this class of cases the right to contract must be limited by the right to tax, and if, in the given case, no tax can lawfully be levied to pay the debt, the contract itself is void for want of authority to make it. If this were not so, these corporations could make valid promises, which they have no means of fulfilling, and on which even the legislature that created them can confer no such pow”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“To lay with one hand the power of the government on the property of the citi zen, and with the other to bestow it upon favored individuals to aid private enterprises and build up private fortunes, is none the less a robbery because it is done under the forms of law....”
7 later decisions 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.