Patton v. Texas & Pacific Railway Co.’s Empirical Analysis
179 U.S. 658 · 1901
Citation profile
554 federal appellate · 33 district · 378 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,120 later decisions (25 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 1995 · most notably Mondou v. New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad (1912), Gunning v. Cooley (1930)
554 federal appellate · 33 district · 378 state decisions — followed in 40 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedthe decision below (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Hough v. Railway Co. · Baltimore Co v. Baugh · Washington Co v. McDade · Delaware Co v. Converse
Cited together with Seaboard Air Line Railway v. Horton · New York Cent Co v. Ambrose · Chicago St Ry Co v. Coogan · Looney v. Metropolitan Railroad · Bailey v. Central Vermont Railway, Inc.
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 1,120 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““And where the testimony leaves the matter uncertain and shows that any one of half a dozen things may have brought about the injury, for some of which the employer is responsible and for some of which he is not, it is not for the jury to guess between these half a dozen causes and find that the negligence of the employer was the real cause, when there is no satisfactory foundation in the testimony for that conclusion. If the employe is unable to adduce sufficient evidence to show negligence on the part of the employer, it is only one of the many eases in which the plaintiff fails in his testimony and no mere sympathy for the unfortunate victim of an accident justifies any departure from settled rules of proof resting upon all plaintiffs.””
44 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]he judge is primarily responsible for the just outcome of the trial. He is not a mere moderator of a town meeting, submitting questions to the jury for determination, nor simply ruling on the admissibility of testimony, but one who in our jurisprudence stands charged with full responsibility.”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““As a preliminary to the consideration of the first question it may be well to repeat, what this court often has said, that when, on the trial of the issues of fact in an action at law before a federal court and a jury, the evidence, with all the inferences that justifiably can be drawn from it, does not constitute a sufficient basis for a verdict for the plaintiff or the defendant, as the case may be, so that such a verdict, if returned, would liave to be set aside, the court may and should direct a verdict for the other party.””
6 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.