Davis Coal Co. v. Polland’s Empirical Analysis
1902
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 117 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 127 later decisions — most recently August 2013 · most notably Davis v. Mercer Lumber Co. (1905), State v. Barrett (1909)
6 federal appellate · 117 state decisions — followed in 14 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 Ames v. Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway Co. · Louisville & Nashville Railroad v. Kemper · Durant v. Lexington Coal Mining Co. · Whitcomb v. Standard Oil Co. · Greenlee v. . R. R.
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 127 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“•“Freedom of cdntract should not be lightly interfered Svith. As a general rule, the right of contracting as one sees fit stands untrammeled.- But the state has power to restrict this right in the interest of public health, morals, and the like. When, in the present case, it is pointed out that the Legislature has failed in terms to deny the employe’s right to assume the risks from his employer’s disregard of the statute, the quéstion is not ended.. If the Legislature has clearly expressed the public policy of the state on a matter within its right to speak upon authoritatively, and if that public policy would be subverted by allowing the employé to waive in advance his statutory protection, the contract is void as unmistakably as if the' statute in direct words forbade the making of it. * * * The purpose of this statute to promote the safety of miners being clear, and the right of the Legislature to pass it being unquestionable, the court should not declare it a dead letter. If the employer may avail himself of the defense that tlié employé agreed in advance that the ■statute should be disregarded, the court would be measuring the rights of the persons whom the lawmakers intended to.protect by the common-law standard •of the reasonably prudent person, and not by the definite standard set up by the Legislature. This would be practically a judicial repeal of the act. It is no hardship to the employer to disallow him a defense based on an agreement that he should violate a spec”
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.