Loeb v. Friedman's Express, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis
1946
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 13 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 17 later decisions — most recently February 1980
4 federal appellate · 13 state decisions
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 Kansas City Southern Railway Co. v. Carl · American Ry Express Co v. Lindenburg · Marchant v. Mead-Morrison Manufacturing Co. · Caten v. Salt City Movers & Storage Co. · Lindenburg v. American Railway Express 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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“* * * Here the charges constituting the freight rate were not entered in writing on the bill of lading, nor were those charges prepaid by the shipper. It could not be said, therefore, that having accepted the benefit of the lower rate dependent upon a specified valuation, the shipper is estopped from asserting a higher value; nor could it be said in this case, even on the basis of presumption of knowledge on the part of the shipper of the rate-valuation relationship, that there was anything in writing on the bill of lading to constitute an agreement as to valuation. In order to sustain a limitation of liability in this case we should be obliged to go beyond the earlier cases and to hold that where a bill of lading in the form here used, received by the shipper and signed by him, contains a legend calling for the declared value to be stated by the shipper, which value is not inserted, that in itself is tantamount to a declaration in writing of the value of the shipment on the basis of the minimum tariff. The statutory language has no such meaning. Liberality in the construction of a statute such as is here involved may be desirable, but that process may not be stretched to the point of disregarding its plain provisions. In the guise of judicial construction a court should not rewrite a statute. * * * [at 454]”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“■' * * Unless the carrier can comply with the requirements of the statute merely by putting into writing what the shipper has told it orally and then keeping that writing without giving the shipper a chance to verify it and acquiesce in it if found correct or to repudiate it if found incorrect, there was no compliance shown here. Obviously no such loose interpretation of the statute is permissible. It seems plain that nothing was done by these shippers in writing, or in respect to any writing, which had anything whatever to do with a valuation of tlieir property for shipment under one rate or any other. * * s- To permit a carrier, without any action, whatever by the shipper in respect to1 valuation in writing, to limit its liability on the basis of declared or released value on which the rate was charged would be to ignore entirely the statutory requirements that the shipper must make the declaration or agreement in writing, and nullify that part of the proviso. The statute makes it abundantly clear that the carrier’s common law liability for full actual damages, whether or not caused by its negligence, is imxiosed when it accepts goods for carriage, unless a certain specified agreement limiting that liability has been made as the result of an equally certain specified action by the shipper in resi>oct to a voluntary valuation of his goods. Even then the carrier is not permitted to contract against liability for its own negligence. Only by giving the shipper an opportunity”
1 later decision quote this exact passage““Note — Where the rate is dependent on value shippers are required to state specifically in writing the agreed value of the property. “The agreed or declared value of the property is hereby specifically stated by the shipper to be not exceeding $-per -.””
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.