The Osceola’s Empirical Analysis
189 U.S. 158 · 1903
Citation profile
981 federal appellate · 292 district · 203 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,239 later decisions (140 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2025 · most notably Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki (1946), Crowell v. Benson (1932)
981 federal appellate · 292 district · 203 state decisions — followed in 18 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
reviewedBigelow v. Nickerson (from Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on The Oregon · The Lottawanna · Baltimore Co v. Baugh · Sherlock v. Alling
Cited together with Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki · Mahnich v. Southern Steamship Co. · Pope & Talbot, Inc. v. Hawn · Alaska Steamship Co. v. Petterson · Mitchell v. Trawler Racer, 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 2,239 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“That the vessel and her owner are, both by English and American law, liable to an indemnity for injuries received by seamen in consequence of the unseaworthiness of the ship, or a failure to supply and keep in order the proper appliances appurtenant to the ship.”
65 later decisions quote this exact passage““The statute was doubtless primarily intended to cover eases of collision with other vessels or with structures affixed to the land, and to other eases where the damage is done by the ship herself, as the offending thing,, to persons or property outside of the ship, through the negligence or mismanagement of the ship by the officers or seamen in charge. To hold that it applies to injuries suffered by a member of the crew on board the ship is to give the act an effect beyond the ordinary meaning of the words used.””
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.