Ward v. Pullman Car Corp.’s Empirical Analysis
1908
Citation profile
26 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 28 later decisions — most recently October 1969 · most notably Globe Indemnity Co. v. Victill Corp. (1969), 107 So. 2d 496 - Adams v. Fidelity and Casualty Co. of New York (1958)
26 state decisions — followed in 12 states
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 Thomas v. . Winchester · McGinnis v. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Co. · Coughtry v. . Globe Woolen Co. · Bishop v. Weber · Illinois Central Ry. Co. v. Houchins
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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““As to what the true rule is we are not required in this case to decide. The petition here charges more than a mere nonfeasance. The cars could not go out on the road until they were inspected, and passed inspection. When the inspectors inspected the cars and approved them, they went out on the road. Their approval sent the cars out on the road for the use of the trainmen, and, if they sent a car out which was defective, and which they knew or by ordinary care could have known was defective, they are as fully liable to the brakeman who was injured by reason of this as if they had with their own hands handed him a wrench telling him it was safe and proper to be used, when it was in fact in a dangerous condition; and they either knew this or could have known it by ordinary care in such inspection as they were required to make. They did not deliver the car by their own hands to the brakeman, but they approved it, and their approval put the car in the hands of the brakeman. It is not a case of mere failure to act, but it is a case of one who was charged with the duty of seeing that the car was safe before delivering it to another to be used with actual knowledge that if it was unsafe it would endanger his life; for they must be charged with knowing what they should have known by the exercise of ordinary care when they made the inspection and passed the car. If they had not inspected the car at all, and had not approved the car in any way, they would have done no positive act, and”
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.