The Surprise’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 1 district ·

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

1. ““We should also observe that much has been made of the fact that, In The Kate and The Valencia, there were formal charter parties which expressly provided that each charterer should disburse the vessel for ordinary current expenses and protect her from all liens on account thereof. There seems to be an impression that there was something in this fact of special importance, and it has apparently appealed to the legal imagination. It was, however, absolutely immaterial, because, on every charter of the hull of a vessel, the substantial relations of the parties are the same as those specially provided in The Kate and The Valencia. The charterer is bound to disburse the vessel and protect her from liens, and impliedly agrees to do so, an agreement as effectual in law as an express one. Moreover, so far as concerns knowledge on the part of a merchant of a charter party or its terms, or the duty arising on a merchant to inquire, there is' no essential distinction; because, if a merchant knows that the hull is chartered, though orally and informally, -he knows as a matter of course, and must be held to know, that the usual obligations pro and con exist, and he could know no more if the whole was expressed in a formal instrument. We emphasize this fact, be-ca use ail the decisions we will hereafter cite, relating to vessels where the hull was chartered, bear on The Kate and The Valencia, regardless .of the fact whether there was a formal charter, or only an oral one without any expre”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. The South Coast