Hitaffer v. Argonne Co.’s Empirical Analysis
183 F.2d 811 · 1950
Citation profile
84 federal appellate · 27 district · 95 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 222 later decisions (3 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2019 · most notably Sea-Land Services, Inc. v. Gaudet (1974), Halcyon Lines v. Haenn Ship Ceiling & Refitting Corp. (1952)
84 federal appellate · 27 district · 95 state decisions — followed in 38 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
Applies 33 U.S.C. § 901 · 33 U.S.C. § 905 · 33 U.S.C. § 907
Relies on Bennett v. . Bennett · Marri v. Stamford Street Railroad Co. · Rich v. United States · Helmstetler v. Duke Power Co.
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 222 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“* * * logic, reason and right are in favor of the position we are now taking. The medieval concepts of the marriage relation to which other jurisdictions have reverted in order to reach the results which have been handed to us as evidence of the law have long since ceased to have any meaning. It can hardly be said that a wife has less of an interest in the marriage relation than does the husband or in these modern times that a husband renders services of such a different character to the family and household that they must be measured by a standard of such uncertainty that the law cannot estimate any loss thereof. The husband owes the same degree of love, affection, felicity, etc., to the wife as she to him.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]he loss of `services' is an outworn fiction, and the wife's interest in the undisturbed relation with her consort is no less worthy of protection than that of the husband.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““There can be no doubt, therefore, that if a cause of action in the wife for the loss of consortium from alienation of affections or criminal conversation is to be recognized it must be predicated on a legally protected interest. Now then, may we say that she has a legally protected and hence actionable interest in her consortium when it is injured from one of these so-called intentional invasions, and yet, when the very same interest is injured by a negligent defendant, deny her a right of action? It does not seem so to us. Such a result would be neither legal nor logical. On the contrary, it has already been held in this jurisdiction that her interest in the marriage relation is coextensive with that of her husband, and that any interference therewith is a violation of her legal rights. When a legally protected interest of a person has been injured by the wrongful act of another, it is no less actionable because the invasion was negligent rather than intentional or malicious. Some authorities seek to avoid the impact of such logic by holding that in the cases involving intentional invasions to the consortium the injury to the wife is direct, because the husband having participated with the defendant, cannot join with her and benefit from his own wrong. The wife therefore has a cause of action. But we are unable to see how the injury to the consortium is any less direct when the invasion is by a negligent act. Certainly the directness or remoteness of the injury cannot be af”
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.