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confiscation

Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court

Definitions from Case Law

From 299 U.S. 476 - Shoshone Tribe of Indians v. United States · 1937Most cited · 450 citing opinions

Indian lands

The power does not extend so far as to enable the government 'to give the tribal lands to others, or to appropriate them to its own purposes, without rendering, or assuming an obligation to render, just compensation; * * * for that would not be an exercise of guardianship, but an act of confiscation.

How the Supreme Court has restated “confiscation”

1813182518501875190019251937 most cited: 299 U.S. 476 - Shoshone Tribe of Indians v. United States (1937)
first stateddeparted

Each Supreme Court definition of “confiscation,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.

How often courts cite the cases defining “confiscation”

181018501900195020002030143

Court decisions citing the 3 opinions that defined “confiscation” — 781 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.

All 3 definitions, chronological · 1813–1937

  1. every case of the money or estate of an individual, brought into the treasury in virtue of any forfeiture; and in this sense it is generally used in treaties.

  2. where by legislation prescribing rates or charges the use of the property is taken, just compensation assured by these constitutional provisions is a reasonable rate of return upon that value

    rate regulation