Morgan v. Louisiana’s Empirical Analysis
93 U.S. 217 · 1876
Citation profile
8 federal appellate · 48 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 143 later decisions (31 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2008 · most notably United States Trust Company of New York v. New Jersey (1977), Covington Turnpike Road Co v. Sandford (1896)
8 federal appellate · 48 state decisions — followed in 18 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 The Delaware Railroad Tax Minot v. The Philadelphia Wilington and Baltimre Railroad Company · New Jersey v. Wilson · Trask v. Maguire · Wilmington Railroad v. Reid
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 143 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Much confusion of thought has arisen in this case, and in similar cases, from attaching a vague and undefined meaning to the term ‘franchise.’ It is often used as synonymous with ‘rights, privileges, and immunities,’ though of a personal and temporary character; so that, if any one of these exists, it is loosely termed a ‘franchise,’ and is supposed to pass upon a transfer of the franchises of the company. But the term must always be considered in connection with the corporation or property to which it is alleged to appertain. The franchises of a railroad corporation are rights or privileges which are essential to the operations of the corporation, and without which its road and works would be of little value; such as the franchise to run cars, to take tolls, to appropriate earth and gravel for the bed of its road, or water for its engines, and the like.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Immunity of particular property from taxation is a privilege which may sometimes be transferred under that designation, as held in Humphrey v. Pegues, 16 Wall. 244 . All that we now decide is, that such immunity is not itself a franchise of a railroad corporation, which passes as such, without other description, to a purchaser of its property.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“personal, and incapable of transfer without express statutory direction,”
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.