Sinking-Fund Cases v. United States Central Pacific Railroad Company’s Empirical Analysis
99 U.S. 700 · 1879
Citation profile
84 federal appellate · 41 district · 225 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 709 later decisions (120 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2025 · most notably Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority (1936), Village of Euclid Ohio v. Ambler Realty Co (1926)
84 federal appellate · 41 district · 225 state decisions — followed in 43 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 John Den James Murray and John Kayser v. The Hoboken Land and Improvement Company John Den James B Murray et al. · United States v. Union Pacific Railroad · United States v. Union Pacific Railroad · Chicago Burlington and Quincy Railroad Company v. Iowa
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 709 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The United States are as much bound by their contracts as are individuals. If they repudiate their obligations, it is as much repudiation, with all the wrong and reproach that term implies, as it would be if the repudiator had been a State or a municipality or a citizen.”
44 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““The inquiry Hiere was as to the extent of the police power in cases where ihe public interest is affected.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[N]or shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
3 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.