governmental function
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 300 U.S. 352 - Brush v. Commissioner · 1937Most cited · 261 citing opinions
What the city is engaged in doing in that respect is rather rendering a service than selling a commodity. If that service be governmental, it does not become private because a charge is made for it, or a profit realized.
How often courts cite the cases defining “governmental function”
Court decisions citing the 2 opinions that defined “governmental function” — 390 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 2 definitions, chronological · 1937–1961
the Federal Government performs no 'proprietary' functions. If the enabling Act is constitutional and if the instrumentality's activity is within the authority granted by the Act, a governmental function is being performed.