Skidmore v. Swift & Co.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 federal appellate · 1 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 14 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Plaintiffs were firemen or elevator operators or relief firemen, none of whom regularly worked more than the minimum hours per week, unless time spent at the fire hall subject to call in case of an alarm is held to be ‘working.’ “Plaintiffs orally agreed that in addition to their regular eight-hour duties they would remain in the fire hall or within hailing distance thereof, three and one-half to four nights each week so as to be available in the event of an alarm. On these nights they were not required to perform any tasks except to answer alarms, for which they received extra pay. . . . “The Act does not require payment of wages to an employee merely because he is away from home. Nor does the Act undertake to regulate or restrict reasonable and bona fide agreements whereby an employee agrees to be available if needed. ‘Working’ is not synonymous with ‘availability for work.’ “Plaintiffs, in their proof, have failed to segregate sleeping time from non-sleeping, pool, domino, and radio, playing time. Even if the plaintiffs had been entitled to recover for hours spent in boredom, or waiting for bedtime, or an alarm, the proof wholly fails to prove the actual hours spent either in sleeping, playing pool, dominoes, or radio, dressing, shaving, bathing, or in any of said enterprises, the burden of which was on the plaintiffs.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Skelly Oil Co. v. Jackson