United States v. Carroll Towing Co.’s Empirical Analysis
159 F.2d 169 · 1947
Citation profile
118 federal appellate · 13 district · 57 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 271 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2025 · most notably East River Steamship Corp. v. Transamerica Delaval Inc. (1986), Archie v. City of Racine (1988)
118 federal appellate · 13 district · 57 state decisions — followed in 24 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 Mottolese v. Kaufman · The Kathryn B. Guinan · O'Donnell Transp. Co. v. M. & J. Tracy, Inc. · Fulton Lighterage Co. v. Erie R. Co. · United States Trucking Corp. v. City of New York
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 271 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[The owner's duty, as in other similar situations, to provide against resulting injuries is a function of three variables: (1) The probability [of an event occurring]; (2) the gravity of the resulting injury, if [it] does; (3) the burden of adequate precautions. Possibly it serves to bring this notion into relief to state it in algebraic terms: if the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B; liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by P: i.e., whether B is less than PL.”
13 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.