Cope v. Vallette Dry Dock Co.’s Empirical Analysis
119 U.S. 625 · 1887
Citation profile
115 federal appellate · 50 district · 17 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 300 later decisions (21 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2020 · most notably The Robert W. Parsons (1903), Stewart v. Dutra Construction Co. (2005)
115 federal appellate · 50 district · 17 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
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 300 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]he fact that it floats on the water does not make it a ship or vessel,”
11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“used in a very broad sense, to include all navigable structures intended for transportation.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““If we search, through all the books, from the Rules of Oleron, to the present time, we shall find that salvage is only spoken of in relation to ships and vessels and their cargoes, * * * which have been committed to, or lost in, the sea or its branches, or other public navigable waters, and have been found and rescued.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.