Whitaker v. MacFadden Publications, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

18 federal appellate · 18 district · 8 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 53 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ ‘A foreign corporation is amenable to process to enforce a personal liability, in the absence of consent, only if it is doing business within the state in such manner and to such extent as to warrant the inference that it is present there.’ Philadelphia & Reading Railway Co. v. McKibbin, 243 U.S. 264 , 265, 37 S.Ct. 280 , 61 L.Ed. 710 . Accordingly, the District Code provides for service of process on foreign corporations ‘doing business in the District.’ Tit. 24, § 373 [D.C.Code (1940) § 13—103]. It is elementary that not all economic activity amounts to ‘doing business’ in this sense. In Green v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway Co., 205 U.S. 530 , 27 S.Ct. 595 , 51 L.Ed. 916 , a railroad west of Chicago was sued in a United States court in Pennsylvania. The road maintained in Pennsylvania an office, a district freight and passenger agent, and several employees who solicited passenger and freight business. These agents did not sell tickets over defendant’s lines, but they sold ‘prepaid orders’ which entitled the holder to receive a ticket in Chicago. The Supreme Court said it was ‘obvious that the defendant was doing’ in Pennsylvania, ‘a considerable business of a certain kind.’ Yet the Court ruled that ‘The business shown in this case was in substance nothing more than that of solicitation’ (205 U.S. page 533, 27 S.Ct. page 596, 51 L.Ed. 916 ), and that the defendant was not, in the jurisdictional sense, doing business in the state. If the Burlington was not doing bu”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Frene v. Louisville Cement Co.

2. ““. . . Defendant [Macfadden Publications] is a New York corporation. It sells and ships its magazines to, and collects payment from the District News Company, of Washington, D. C. The District News Company resells to and collects from retailers and street vendors. Pendergast and four assistants, for remuneration which defendant pays by check from New York, supervise and promote sales of the magazines among the street vendors who buy their stock from the District News Company. Pendergast solicits neither advertising nor subscriptions, and neither collects nor forwards money to defendant. Neither the District News Company nor Pendergast is authorized to make any contracts for defendant. Defendant has no place of business in the District, but the District News Company furnishes Pendergast with an office and telephone on its premises without cost to him or to defendant.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Frene v. Louisville Cement Co.