German Alliance Insurance Company v. Ike Lewis’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

48 federal appellate · 60 district · 362 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 711 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The effect of insurance — indeed, it has been said to be its fundamental object— is to distribute the loss over as wide an area as possible. In other words, the loss is spread over the country, the disaster to an individual is shared by many, the dis aster to a community shared by other communities ; great catastrophies are thereby lessened, and, it may be, repaired. In assimilation of insurance to a tax, the companies have been said to be the mere machinery by which the inevitable losses by fire are distributed so as to fall as lightly as possible on the public at large, the body of the insured, not the companies, paying the tax. Their efficiency, therefore, and solvency, are of great concern. The other objects, direct and indirect, of insurance, we need -not mention. Indeed, it may be enough to say, without stating other effects of insurance, that a large part of the country’s wealth, subject to uncertainty of loss through fire, is protected by insurance'. This demonstrates the interest of the public in it, and we need not dispute with the economists that this is the result of the ‘substitution of certain for uncertain loss,’ or the diffusion of positive loss over a large ‘group of persons, as we have already said to be certainly one of its effects. We can see, therefore, how it has come to be considered a matter of public concern to regulate it, and, governmental insurance has its advocates and even examples. Contracts of insurance, therefore, have greater public conseque”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Tyson & Brother v. Banton · Group Life & Health Insurance v. Royal Drug Co.

2. ““A citation of cases is not necessary, nor for the general principle that a discrimination is valid, if not arbitrary, and arbitrary in the legislative sense, that is, outside of that wide discretion which a Legislature may exercise. A legislative classification may rest on narrow distinctions. Legislation is addressed to evils as they may appear, and even degrees of evil may determine its exercise.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. C. A. Weed & Co. v. Lockwood · Baker v. State Land Office Board

3. “`The contracts of insurance may be said to be interdependent. They cannot be regarded singly, or isolatedly, and the effect of their relation is to create a fund of assurance and credit, the companies becoming the depositories of the money of the insured, possessing great power thereby and charged with great responsibility.'”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Tyson & Brother v. Banton · Southern United Fire Ins. Co. v. Knight