Shaw v. Railroad Co.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

64 federal appellate · 24 district · 183 state decisions

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 361 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “No statute is to be construed as altering the common law, farther than its words import. It is not to be construed as making any innovation upon the common law which it does not fairly express.”

   20 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority v. Johnson · Barber Asphalt Paving Co. v. Austin

2. ““Bills of lading are regarded as so much cotton, grain, iron, or other articles of merchandise. The merchandise is very often sold or pledged by the transfer of the bills which cover it.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. George F. Hinrichs, Inc. v. Standard Trust & Savings Bank · Roy & Roy v. Northern Pacific Railway Co.

3. ““They are representatives of money, circulating in the commercial world as evidence of money, ‘of which any person in lawful possession may avail himself to pay debts or make purchases or make remittances of money from one country to another, or to remote places in the same country. Hence, as said by Story, .1., it has become a general rule of the commercial world to hold bills of exchange as in some sort sacred instruments in favor of bona iide holders for a valuable consideration without notice.’ Without such a holding they could not perform their peculiar functions. It is for this reason it is held that if a bill or note, indorsed in blank or payable to bearer, be lost or stolen, and be purchased from the finder or thief, * * * the bona fide purchaser may hold it against the true owner. He may hold it, though he took it negligently, and when there were suspicious circumstances attending the transfer. Nothing short of actual or constructive notice that the instrument is not the property of the person who offers to sell it — that is, nothing short of mala fides — will defeat his light. The rule is the same as that which pro-torts the bona fide indorser of a bill or note purchased for value from the true owner. The purchaser is not bound to look beyond the instrument.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Santa Marina Co. v. Canadian Bank of Commerce