Chambers v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad’s Empirical Analysis
207 U.S. 142 · 1907
Citation profile
157 federal appellate · 39 district · 115 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 539 later decisions (62 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2023 · most notably Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization (1939), Christopher Former Secretary of State et al. v. Harbury (2002)
157 federal appellate · 39 district · 115 state decisions — followed in 27 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
Relies on Huntington v. Attrill · Slaughter-House Cases the Butchers' Benevolent Association of New Orleans v. The Crescent City Live · Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co. · Paul v. Virginia · Cole v. Cunningham
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 539 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The right to sue and defend in the courts is the alternative of force. In an organized society it is the right conservative of all other rights, and lies at the foundation of orderly government. It is one of the highest and most essential privileges of citizenship, and must be allowed by each state to the citizens of all other states to the precise extent that it is allowed to its own citizens. Equality of treatment in this respect is not left to depend upon comity between the states, but is granted and protected by the Federal Constitution.”
35 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“"The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.” 5”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““It does not seem reasonable that a cause of action created by the law of one state should be materially enlarged when the beneficiary moves across the state line and appeals to the court of another state to enforce his impaired right. The rule of state comity does not imply such a result. We think that an action in this state for a wrongful death occurring in another stale or territory is incumbered with all the limitations and burdens which may have been imposed by the statutes of the state whore the right of action was crea ted. In this ease the notice provided by section 1 of the act of 1903 is an essential part of the cause of action, and until such notice is given no cause or right of action exists either in New Mexico or elsewhere.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.