public use
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 327 U.S. 546 - United States Tennessee Valley Authority v. Welch Same · 1946Most cited · 445 citing opinions
federal eminent domain
it is the function of Congress to decide what type of taking is for a public use and that the agency authorized to do the taking may do so to the full extent of its statutory authority. When Congress has spoken on this subject its decision is entitled to deference until it is shown to involve an impossibility.
How the Supreme Court has restated “public use”
Each Supreme Court definition of “public use,” 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 “public use”
Court decisions citing the 7 opinions that defined “public use” — 1,331 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 8 definitions, chronological · 1822–1946
- ORIGINAL
It is immaterial whether the patentee had notice of the prior invention or not. If it was in actual use in any part of the world, however unlikely or impossible that the fact could come to the knowledge of the patentee, his patent for the same machine cannot be supported.
patent invalidation
whether a use is public or private is not a question of constitutional construction. It is a question of general law. It has as much reference to the constitution of any other State as it has to the State of Wisconsin. Its solution must be sought not in the decisions of any single State tribunal, but in general principles common to all courts.
general law, not state constitutional construction
Whether the use of a railroad is a public or a private one depends in no measure upon the question who constructed it or who owns it. It has never been considered a matter of any importance that the road was built by the agency of a private corporation. No matter who is the agent, the function performed is that of the State. Though the ownership is private the use is public.
railroad — ownership irrelevant
The power of the state to declare uses of property to be public has lately been decided in Clark v. Nash ... and in the case of Strickley v. Highland Boy Gold Min. Co. ... [I]t proved that there might be exceptional times and places in which the very foundations of public welfare could not be laid without requiring concessions from individuals to each other upon due compensation, which, under other circumstances, would be left wholly to voluntary consent.
state's power to take private property
A spur may, at the outset, lead only to a single industry or establishment; it may be constructed to furnish an outlet for the products of a particular plant; its cost may be defrayed by those in special need of its service at the time. But none the less, by virtue of the conditions under which it is provided, the spur may constitute at all times a part of the transportation facilities of the carrier which are operated under the obligations of public service, and are subject to the regulation of public authority. ... The uses for which the track was desired are not the less public because the motive which dictated its location over this particular land was to reach a private industry, or because the proprietors of that industry contributed in any way to the cost.
spur tracks
To gather the streams from waste and to draw from them energy, labor without brains, and so to save mankind from toil that it can be spared, is to supply what, next to intellect, is the very foundation of all our achievements and all our welfare. If that purpose is not public, we should be at a loss to say what is. The inadequacy of use by the general public as a universal test is established.
eminent domain
A mere experimental use is not the public use defined by the Act, but a single use for profit, not purposely hidden, is such. The ordinary use of a machine or the practise of a process in a factory in the usual course of producing articles for commercial purposes is a public use.
patent