Southern Ry. Co. v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

9 federal appellate · 2 district ·

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

1. ““While it is primarily the duty of a switchman in railroad yards to be on the lookout and keep out of the way of moving engines, there is a concurrent or secondary «duty, independent of statute or rule, on the part of those in charge of such moving engines, to keep such lookout as is reasonably necessary to avoid injury to an employé who may neglect to protect himself, and the extent of such duty is measured by the peculiar circumstances of the case. “While plaintiff’s intestate, who was a switchman in defendant’s railroad yards, was walking along a track in the yards at night, he was overtaken and killed by an engine which was ‘drifting’ or moving slowly behind h'im on the track, making very little noise. . Its headlight was dim, and rendered more so by the electric yard lights, and there was a train passing on an adjoining track, which covered what noise the engine made. It could have been stopped within 10 feet, but the engineer did not see deceased. Held, that the facts tended to show that the engineer was negligent, and Ms negligence had a causal relation to the injury, and that a verdict for plaintiff was supported by the evidence.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Hughes v. Delaware, L. & W. R. Co. · Delaware, L. & W. R. v. Hughes