Smith v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
1953
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 1 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently March 1999
2 federal appellate · 1 district · 1 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.
Relationships
Relies on Cosmopolitan Shipping Co. v. McAllister
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 7 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"The record shows that Smith is dead as a result of his fall with the ladder. But it would be a mere guess to say when he died, or whether his death was caused from striking the dock or drowning or both. If the time of his death was known and shown, there would I take it he both mental and physical suffering by him from the time he began to fall until his death. But as the record stands, [the] only certain period'of mental and physical suffering is from the time he began to fall until he struck the dock, and the amount of damages, if any, recoverable therefor would be a mere guess. I do not think [plaintiff], under this record is entitled to recover therefor."”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“struck his head against the dock ..., that as a result thereof he suffered serious and painful injuries and then and there recognized the imminence of his falling into the water and drowning, all of which caused him extreme pain, mental anguish and untold misery.” Smith, 121 F.Supp. at 784 . The trial court, as the trier of fact, disagreed, concluding:”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.