Standard Oil Company v. Edward Anderson’s Empirical Analysis
212 U.S. 215 · 1909
Citation profile
395 federal appellate · 74 district · 622 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,337 later decisions (29 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2024 · most notably Metcalf & Eddy v. Mitchell (1926), Kelley v. Southern Pacific Co. (1974)
395 federal appellate · 74 district · 622 state decisions — followed in 47 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
reviewedStandard Oil Co. v. Anderson (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Little v. Hackett · Driscoll v. Towle · Frank Guy v. John a Donald · Higgins v. . Western Union Telegraph Co.
Cited together with Denton v. Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad · Ryan Stevedoring Co. v. Pan-Atlantic Steamship Corp. · Driscoll v. Towle · Ruiz v. Shell Oil Co. · Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Co. v. Bond
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 1,337 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““To determine whether a given case falls within the one class or the other we must inquire whose is the work being performed, — a question which is usually answered by ascertaining who has the power to control and direct the servants in the performance of their work. Here we must carefully distinguish between authoritative direction and control, and mere suggestion as to details or the necessary cooperation, where the work furnished is part of a larger undertaking.””
70 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“was not the giving of orders, but of information, and [that] the obedience to those signals showed co-operation rather than subordination. . . .”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“but the mere fact that a servant is sent to do work pointed out to him by a person who has made a bargain with his master does not make him that person's servant; more than that is necessary to take him out of the relation established by the only contract which he has made, and to make him a voluntary subject of a new sovereign.”
8 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.