Seaboard Air Line Railway v. Seegers’s Empirical Analysis
207 U.S. 73 · 1907
Citation profile
16 federal appellate · 10 district · 70 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 166 later decisions (18 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2011 · most notably BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore (1996), TXO Production Corp. v. Alliance Resources Corp. (1993)
16 federal appellate · 10 district · 70 state decisions — followed in 23 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 Barbier v. Connolly · Gulf Ry Co v. Ellis · Bell's Gap Railroad v. Pennsylvania · Charles Cotting v. A a Godard · Atchison Co v. Matthews
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 166 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““We are of the opinion that this ease comes within the limits of constitutionality. * * * The object of the statute was not to penalize the carrier for merely refusing to pay a claim within the time required, whether just or unjust; but the design was to bring about a reasonably prompt settlement of all proper claims, the penalty, in case of a recovery in a court, operating as a deterrent of the carrier in refusing to settle just claims, and as compensation of the claimant for the trouble and expense of the suit which the carrier’s unreasonable delay and refusal made necessary.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““It may be stated as a general rule,” said Justice Brewer, “that an act which puts in one class all engaged in business of "a special and public character, requires of them the performance of a duty which they can do better and more quickly than others, and imposes a not exorbitant penalty for a failure to perform that duty within a reasonable time, cannot be adjudged unconstitutional as a purely arbitrary classification.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““It must be remembered that the purpose of this legislation is not primarily to enforce the collection of debts, but to compel the performance of duties which ’the carrier assumes when it enters upon the discharge of its public functions.””
1 later decision 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.