Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad Company v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
93 U.S. 442 · 1876
Citation profile
12 federal appellate · 7 district · 14 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 82 later decisions (14 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2019 · most notably Western Union Telegraph Company v. Pennsylvania Railroad Company (1904), Georgia Railroad & Banking Co. v. Smith (1888)
12 federal appellate · 7 district · 14 state decisions
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.
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 82 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““But it is not alone in charters which contemplate the creation of railroads as public highways that we And evidence of the understood distinction between railroads as mere thoroughfares, and the operations to be carried on upon them by means of locomotives and cars. This is manifest from thefact, amongst other tilings, that express power is invariably given (if intended to be conferred) to the railroad company to equip its road, and to transport goods and passengers thereon, and charge compensation therefor. This practice evidently springs from the conviction that a railroad company is not necessarily a transportation company, and that to make it such, express authority must be given for that purpose, in compliance with the rule that no power is conferred upon a corporation which is not given expressly or by clear implication.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“An act authorizing the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Company to change its line in consideration of a relinquishment of lands” (16 Stat. p. 588). The grant was made upon condition that the railroads and branches constructed by the aid thereof should remain public highways for the use of the government of the United States, free of all tolls or other charges upon the transportation of any property or troops of the United States. It was held by the Supreme Court of the United”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent“Congress, in most of the legislative acts by which it has made donations of the public lands to the States in which they lie for the purpose of aiding in the construction of railroads, has stipulated that the railroads so aided shall be public highways for the use of the government, free from all tolls or other charge for transportation of its property or troops.”
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.