Munn v. Illinois’s Empirical Analysis
94 U.S. 113 · 1876
Citation profile
176 federal appellate · 130 district · 1,009 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,975 later decisions (219 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Ex Parte: Edward T Young (1908), Williamson v. Lee Optical of Oklahoma, Inc. (1955)
176 federal appellate · 130 district · 1,009 state decisions — followed in 50 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 Gibbons v. Ogden · Slaughter-House Cases the Butchers' Benevolent Association of New Orleans v. The Crescent City Live · Brown v. Maryland · John Den James Murray and John Kayser v. The Hoboken Land and Improvement Company John Den James B Murray et al.
Cited together with Nebbia v. People of State of New York · German Alliance Insurance Company v. Ike Lewis · Budd v. People of State of New York · Chas. Wolff Packing Co. v. Court of Industrial Relations · Smyth v. Ames
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 1,975 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Looking, then, to the common law, from whence came the [property] right which the Constitution protects, we find that when private property is 'affected with a public interest, it ceases to be juris privati only.' This was said by Lord Chief Justice Hale more than two hundred years ago, in his treatise De Portibus Maris, 1 Harg. Law Tracts, 78, and has been accepted without objection as an essential element in the law of property ever since. Property does become clothed with a public interest when used in a manner to make it of public consequence, and affect the community at large.”
53 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Holden v. Hardy · Pipe Line Cases“[a] person has no property, no vested interest, in any rule of the common law.”
26 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“business affected with a public interest”
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.