The Fin MacCool’s Empirical Analysis
147 F. 123 · 1906
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 1 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently May 1972
4 federal appellate · 1 district ·
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 Stitt v. Huidekopers · Horn v. Baltimore · Rhodes v. United States
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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The case is one for the application of the rule of evidence that positive evidence is ordinarily to prevail over strictly negative evidence, and that when one or more witnesses testify that they saw an object or heal’d a signal upon a given occasion, their testimony is to prevail over that of a same number of witnesses, of equal candor, who testify that they did not see or hear it. There is, in such cases, no necessary conflict of evidence as to the fact in question. The observation of the fact by some of the witnesses may be entirely consistent with the failure of the others to observe it, or their forgetfulness of its occurrence. Horn v. Balt. & Ohio R. Co., 54 F. 301 , 4 C. C. A. 346 , 351; Rhodes v. U. S., 79 F. 740 , 21 L. Ed. 644 , 25 C. C. A. 186 ; Stitt v. Huidekoper, 17 Wall. 393 . Of course, in each ease the opportunities of observation, and the interest prompting the witnesses to attentive.observation are to be considered; and the rule referred to is not inexorable, but is to be applied with due regard to the circumstances of the particular case. The whole subject is excellently treated in 17 Cyc. pp. 801-803, where all the authorities are collected. “Upon consideration of all the evidence we are led to the conclusion that the men on board the Elder did not maintain a vigilant observation, and that the lights upon the wreck, though not seen by the lookout or any others of her crew, were visible, and ought to have been discovered.” '”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.