Costello v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

9 federal appellate · 18 state decisions

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 30 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““This is on the principle that one who can lawfully operate only under a public franchise cannot escape liability by engaging an independent contractor to carry on the activity for him. Restatement, Torts, § 428. It is an exception to the independent contractor rule.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Zimmerman v. Mathews Trucking Corp. · Virgil v. Riss & Co.

2. ““ * * * So far as concerns the safety of the public, determination of what regulation is required rests with the (Interstate Commerce) Commission ; the legislative grant is not to the courts. So long as properly constituted authority is content not to regulate further than it has the operation of empty trucks after the termination of a ‘one-way lease,’ the courts may not properly by judicial decision supplement the Commission’s regulations. * * * Nor do the present regulations forbid a common carrier such as Johnson from making a one-way lease with an independent contractor such as Withers. In the absence of statutory command or of regulatory action by the Commission, we cannot say that a one-way lease is so far contrary to the policy of the Act that a court should impose liability on the lessee after the lease has ended.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Duke v. Thomas

3. ““In Dixie Ohio Exp. Co. Common Carrier Application, 17 M.C.C. 735, we held that operations by owner-drivers, when under an applicant’s direction, control, and responsibility, become the operations of the applicant, which is the dominant carrier. That finding is also applicable with respect to the operations involved in the instant proceedings. If the vehicles of owner-operators, while being used by applicant here, were operated under its direction and control and under its responsibility to the general public as well as to the shipper, then its operations, in which such vehicles were employed, come within the phrase ‘or by a lease or any other arrangement’of section 203 (a) (14), and applicant, as to such operations, was and is a common carrier by motor vehicle.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Dees v. Pearce