Mary Harris, Widow of Dupree Butler v. George W. Whiteman’s Empirical Analysis
243 F.2d 563 · 1957
Citation profile
26 federal appellate · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 33 later decisions — most recently June 2017 · most notably Martin v. John W. Stone Oil Distributor, Inc. (1987), Beota Rogers Thibodeaux v. J. Ray McDermott & Co., Inc., and the Travelers Insurance Company, J. Ray McDermott & Co., Inc., and the Travelers Insurance Company, Cross-Appellant v. Beota Rogers Thibodeaux, Cross-Appellee (1960)
26 federal appellate · 4 state decisions
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 Desper v. Starved Rock Ferry Co. · Carumbo v. Cape Cod S. S. Co. · English v. Mattson · Holm v. Cities Service Transp. 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 33 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"* * * He was last seen around noon on October 7, 1953, and his body was recovered from the river several days later. On the morning he was last seen he had been engaged in the engine room cleaning the boilers preparatory to a Coast Guard inspection. * * * * * * "It is equally clear from the undisputed evidence that the G.W. Whiteman was made fast to a floating barge so that for forty feet along its length there was insufficient space between barge and ship for a man to slip into the water. The only negligence that appellants sought to establish being the absence of a gangplank for boarding the G.W. Whiteman, it is clear that on the record it would have been inadmissible for the court to have submitted to the jury the issue of negligence. * * * * * * "* * * There is no evidence as to how Butler actually came to be in the water. If it is to be inferred that he might have fallen into the water when he was seen `stepping down' from the barge to the G.W. Whiteman, there is still the undisputed evidence that there was a forty-foot area in which the tug and the barge were so closely bound, both by the lines and by the force of the river's flow, that no space was left sufficient for the passage of a man's body. There was also the undisputed testimony that under such circumstances the normal access between barge and tug was to step from one to the other without a gangplank. There is no evidence that could have authorized the inference that the failure of defendant to provide a gangpl”
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.