Constable v. National Steamship Co.’s Empirical Analysis
154 U.S. 51 · 1894
Citation profile
91 federal appellate · 27 district · 40 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 245 later decisions (6 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2014 · most notably Steamship Willdomino v. Citro Chemical Co. (1927), Republic of France v. French Overseas Corporation the Malcolm Baxter Jr (1928)
91 federal appellate · 27 district · 40 state decisions — followed in 16 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 Liverpool & Great Western Steam Co. v. Phenix Insurance · Hart v. Pennsylvania Railroad · Railroad Company v. Lockwood · Lawrence v. . Fox · The " Scotland"
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 245 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“'voluntary departure without necessity, or any reasonable cause, from the regular and usual course”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““As observed by the Court of Appeals of New York in Simson v. Brown, 68 N. Y. 355 : ‘It is not every promise made by one to another, from the performance of which a benefit may inure to a third, which gives a right of action to such third person, he being neither privy to the contract nor to the consideration. The contract must be made for his benefit, as its object, and he must be the party intended to be benefited.’ See, also, National Bank v. Grand Lodge, 98 U. S. 123 [ 25 L. Ed. 75 ]; Gamsey v. Rogers, 47 N. Y. 233 [ 7 Am. Rep. 440 ]. The principle above announced was still further limited by the Court of Appeals in Vrooman v. Turner, 69 N. Y. 280 [ 25 Am. Rep. 195 ], in which it was said that, to give a third party, who may derive a benefit from the performance of a promise, an action, there must be, first, an intent by the promisor to secure some benefit to the third party; and, second, some privity between the two — the promisor and the party to be benefited— and some obligation or duty owing from the promisor to the latter, which would give him a legal or equitable claim to the benefit of the promise, or an equivalent to him personally.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(n)o rule is better settled than that the delivery must be according to the custom and usage of the port.”
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.