George Pierce Company v. Wells Fargo & Company’s Empirical Analysis
236 U.S. 278 · 1915
Citation profile
53 federal appellate · 2 district · 43 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 149 later decisions (14 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2012 · most notably Louisville Nashville Railroad Company v. G a Maxwell (1915), Missouri Pacific Railroad v. Elmore & Stahl (1964)
53 federal appellate · 2 district · 43 state decisions — followed in 19 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
reviewedGeorge N. Pierce Co. v. Wells Fargo & Co. (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Adams Express Co. v. Croninger · Hart v. Pennsylvania Railroad · Kansas City Southern Railway Co. v. Carl · Missouri Kansas Texas Railway Company v. Harriman Brothers · Railroad Company v. Lockwood
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 149 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““That contracts for limited liability, when fairly made, do not contravene the settled principles of the common law preventing the carrier from contracting against its liability for loss by negligence (Railroad Co. v. Lockwood, 17 Wall. 357 , 375), was settled by this court in what is known as the Hart Case (Hart v. Pennsylvania R. R., 112 U. S. 331 [ 5 Sup. Ct. 151 , 28 L. Ed. 717 ]).””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““But it is said, and this fact was the basis of the dissenting opinion in the Circuit Court of Appeals, that there was no valuation at all in this case, and that the disproportion between the actual value of the automobiles shipped —about $15,000 — and $50 demonstrates this fact, and it is insisted that what was done was merely an arbitrary and unreasonable limitation in the guise of valuation. This argument overlooks the fact that the legality of the contract does not depend upon a valuation which shall have a relation to the actual worth of the property. None such was attempted in the Neiman-Marcus Case [ 227 U. S. 469 , 33 Sup. Ct. 267 , 57 L. Ed. 600 ], the Croninger Case [ 226 U. S. 491 , 33 Sup. Ct. 148 , 57 L. Ed. 314 , 44 L. R. A. (N. S.) 257 ], or the Hooker Case [ 233 U. S. 97 , 34 Sup. Ct. 526 , 58 L. Ed. 868 , L. R. A. 1915B, 450, Ann. Cas. 1915D, 593].””
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.