Knickerbocker Ice Co. v. Stewart’s Empirical Analysis
253 U.S. 149 · 1920
Citation profile
276 federal appellate · 76 district · 307 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,016 later decisions (129 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2024 · most notably Crowell v. Benson (1932), Massachusetts v. Mellon (1923)
276 federal appellate · 76 district · 307 state decisions — followed in 30 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
Relationships
Relies on M'Culloch v. State of Maryland · Gibbons v. Ogden · Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen · Mondou v. New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad · Simpson v. Shepard
Cited together with Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen · Washington v. W. C. Dawson & Co. · Grant Smith-Porter Ship Co. v. Rohde · Chelentis v. Luckenbach Steamship Co. · Western Fuel Co. v. Garcia
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 1,016 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The Constitution itself adopted and established, as part of the laws of the United States, approved rules of the general maritime law and empowered Congress to legislate in respect of them and other matters within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. Moreover, it took from the States all power, by legislation or judicial decision, to contravene the essential purposes of, or to work material injury to, characteristic features of such law or to interfere with its proper harmony and uniformity in its international and interstate relations. To preserve adequate harmony and appropriate uniform rules relating to maritime matters and bring them within control of the Federal Government was the fundamental purpose; and to such definite end Congress was empowered to legislate within that sphere.”
14 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Congress exceeded its constitutional power to legislate concerning rights and liabilities within the maritime jurisdiction, and remedies for their enforcement, by attempting, as it did in the Act of October 6, 1917, to permit the application of Workmen’s Compensation Laws of the several states to injuries within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, thus virtually destroying the harmony and uniformity which the Constitution not only contemplated, but actually established.””
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“interfere with the proper harmony and uniformity”
7 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.