Empire State Cattle Company v. Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company No 178 Minnesota & Dakota Cattle Company’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

135 federal appellate · 11 district · 43 state decisions

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

1. ““From this it follows that the action of the trial court in giving the peremptory instruction to return a verdict for the railway cannot be sustained merely because of the request made by both parties for a peremptory instruction in view of the special requests asked on behalf of the plaintiffs. The correctness, therefore, of the action of the court, in giving the peremptory instruction, depends, not upon the requests which were made on that subject, but upon whether the state of the proof was such as to hare authorized the court, in the exercise of a sound discretion to decline to submit the 'case to the jury. That is to say, the validity of the peremptory instruction must depend upon whether the evidence was so undisputed or was of such a conclusivo character as would have made it the duty of the court to set aside the verdict if the case had been given to the jury and the verdict returned in favor of the plaintiff.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Charlotte Nat. Bank v. Southern Ry. Co. · Lawton v. Carpenter

2. ““It was settled in Beuttell v. Magone, supra, that, where both parties request a peremptory instruction and do nothing more [italics mine'l, they thereby assume the facts to be undisputed, and, in effect, submit, to tbe trial judge the inferences proper to be drawn. But nothing in that ruling sustains the view that a party may not request a peremptory instruction, and yet, upon the refusal of the court to give it, insist, by appropriate requests, upon the submission of the ease to the jury, where the evidence is conflicting or the inferences to be drawn therefrom divergent. To hold the contrary would unduly extend the doctrine of Beuttell v. Magone by causing it to embrace a case not within the ruling in that case.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Williams v. Vreeland · Lawton v. Carpenter

3. “The request made to the court by each party to instruct the jury to render a verdict in his favor was not equivalent to a submission of the case to the court, without the intervention of a jury, within the intendment of sections 649, 700, Revised Statutes. As, however, both parties asked the court to instruct a verdict, both affirmed that there was no disputed question of fact which could operate to deflect or control the question of law. This was necessarily a request that the court find the facts, and the parties are, therefore, concluded by the finding made by the court, upon which the resulting instruction of law was given. The facts having been thus submitted to the court, we are limited in reviewing its action, to consideration of the correctness of the finding on the law, and must affirm if there be any evidence in support thereof.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Citizens' Nat. Bank of Brownwood v. Texas Compress Co.