Catherine Schlemmer v. Buffalo Rochester & Pittsburgh Railway Company’s Empirical Analysis
220 U.S. 590 · 1911
Citation profile
41 federal appellate · 7 district · 74 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 172 later decisions (26 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 1999 · most notably Tiller v. Atlantic Coast Line Railroad (1943), Texas & Pacific Railway Co. v. Rigsby (1916)
41 federal appellate · 7 district · 74 state decisions — followed in 21 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 Choctaw, Oklahoma & Gulf R. R. v. McDade · Schlemmer v. Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburg Railway Co. · Taylor v. Carew Manufacturing Co. · Holum v. Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Co.
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 172 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““ * * * While, as was said in the case when here before, assumption of risk sometimes shades into negligence as commonly understood, there is, nevertheless, a practical and clear distinction between the two. In the absence of statute taking away the defense, or such obvious dangers that no ordinarily prudent person would incur them, an employee is held to assume the risk of the ordinary dangers of the occupation into which he is about to enter, and also those risks and dangers which are known, or are so plainly observable that the employee may be presumed to know of them, and if he continues in the master’s employ without objection, he takes upon himself the risk of injury from such defects. Choctaw, O. & G. R. v. McDade [ 191 U.S. 64, 67, 68 , 48 L.Ed. 96, 100, 101 , 24 Sup.Ct.Rep. 24 ], and former cases in this court therein cited. “Contributory negligence on the other hand, is the omission of the employee to use those precautions for his own safety which ordinary prudence requires. * * * ””
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Every common carrier by railroad while engaging in commerce between any of the several states or territories, or between the District of Columbia and any of the states or territories, or between the District of Columbia or any of the states or territories and any foreign nation or nations, shall be liable in damages to any person suffering injury while he is employed by such carrier in such commerce, or, in case of the death- of such employee, to his or her personal representative, for the benefit of the surviving widow or husband and children of such employee; and, if none, then of the next of kin dependent upon such employee, for such injury or death resulting in whole or in part from the negligence of any of the officers, agents, or employees of such earner, or by reason of any defect or insufficiency, due to its negligence, in its ears, engines, appliances, machinery, track, roadbed, works, boats, wharves, or other equipment [or due to the violation by such common carrier of any statute enacted for the benefit of employees].””
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.