American Banana Company v. United Fruit Company’s Empirical Analysis
213 U.S. 347 · 1909
Citation profile
284 federal appellate · 93 district · 90 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 857 later decisions (115 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2025 · most notably Zenith Radio Corp. v. Hazeltine Research, Inc. (1969), United Mine Workers v. Pennington (1965)
284 federal appellate · 93 district · 90 state decisions — followed in 22 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
reviewedAmerican Banana Co. v. United Fruit Co. (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Ex Parte: Edward T Young · Gibbons v. Ogden · Osborn v. President Directors and Company of the Bank of the United States · Fletcher v. Peck · Coe v. Town of Errol
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 857 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“character of an act as lawful or unlawful must be determined wholly by the law of the country where the act is done.”
12 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“* * * The very meaning of sovereignty is that the decree of the sovereign makes law. * * *”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a seizure by a state is not a thing that can be complained of elsewhere in the courts.”
2 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.