Southern Pacific Co. v. Schuyler’s Empirical Analysis
227 U.S. 601 · 1913
Citation profile
20 federal appellate · 10 district · 27 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 143 later decisions (38 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 1977 · most notably Napue v. People of the State of Illinois (1959), Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen (1917)
20 federal appellate · 10 district · 27 state decisions — followed in 13 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 Armour Packing Company v. United States · Louisville & Nashville Railroad v. Mottley · New York New Haven Hartford Railroad Company v. Interstate Commerce Commission · Murdock v. City of Memphis · Seth Carter v. State of Texas
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 143 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““But the act itself declares what penalty shall be imposed for a violation of its prohibition: ‘Any common carrier violating this provision shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and for each offense, on conviction, shall pay to the United States a penalty of not less than’ one hundred dollars nor more than two thousand dollars, and any person; other than the persons excepted in this provision, who uses any such interstate free ticket, free pass, or free transportation, shall be subject to a like penalty.’ This penalty is not to be enlarged by construction. Neither the letter nor the spirit of the act makes an outlaw of him who violates its prohibition by either giving or accepting gratuitous interstate carriage. The deceased no more forfeited his life, limb, or safety, and no more forfeited his right to the protection accorded by the local law to a passenger in his situation, than the carrier forfeited its right of property in the mail car upon which the deceased rode. His right to safe carriage was not derived, according to the law of Utah, from the contract- made between him and the carrier, and therefore was - not deduced from the supposed violation of the Hepburn Act. It arose from the fact that he was a human being,' of whose safety the plaintiff in error had undertaken the charge. With its consent he had placed his life in its keeping, and the local law thereupon imposed a duty upon the carrier, irrespective of the-contract of carriage. The-Hepburn Act does not depri”
3 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.