The Max Morris’s Empirical Analysis
137 U.S. 1 · 1890
Citation profile
179 federal appellate · 64 district · 35 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 458 later decisions (55 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 2015 · most notably Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki (1946), Pope & Talbot, Inc. v. Hawn (1953)
179 federal appellate · 64 district · 35 state decisions — followed in 13 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 The "North Star" · The Palmyra · Union Nat Bank of Chicago v. Bank of Kansas City · The Ariadne
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 458 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the more equal distribution of justice, the dictates of humanity, the safety of life and limb, and the public good, will be best promoted by holding vessels liable to bear some part of the actual pecuniary loss sustained by the libelant * * *.”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Whether in a case like this the decree should be for exactly one-half of the damages sustained, or might, in the discretion of the court, be for a greater or less proportion of such damages, is a question not presented for our determination upon this record, and we express no opinion upon it.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““But the plaintiff has elected to bring his suit in an admiralty court, which has jurisdiction of the ease, notwithstanding the concurrent right to sue at law. In this court the course of proceeding is in many respects different and the rules of decision are different. The mode of pleading is different, the proceeding more summary and informal, and neither party has a right to trial by jury. An important difference as regards this ease is the rule for estimating the damages. “In the comm on-law court the defendant must pay all the damages or none. If there has been on the part of plaintiffs such carelessness or want of skill as the common law would esteem to be contributory negligence, they can recover nothing. By the rule of the admiralty court, where there has been such contributory negligence,. or in other words, when both have been in fault, the entire damages resulting from the collision must be equally divided between the parties. This rule of the admiralty commends itself quite as favorably in its influence in securing practical justice as the other, and the plaintiff who has the selection of the forum in which he will litigate, cannot complain of the rule of that forum.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.