Boston Sand & Gravel Co. v. United States’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

252 federal appellate · 43 district · 42 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 664 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “rather an axiom of experience than a rule of law, and does not preclude consideration of persuasive evidence if it exists.”

   29 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Watt v. Alaska · Public Citizen v. United States Department of Justice

2. ““That the claim of the Pool Shipping Company, Limited, owner ' of the British steamship Clearpool, against the United States for damages alleged to have been caused by collision between the said steamship and the United States Coast Guard cutter Apache in Chesapeake Bay, on the 13th day of November, 1914, may be sued for by the said Pool Shipping Company, Limited, in the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York, sitting as a court of admiralty and acting under the rules governing such court, and said court shall have jurisdiction to hear and determine such suit and to enter a judgment or decree for the amount of such damages and costs, if any, as shall be found to be due against the United States in favor of the Pool Shipping Company, Limited, or against the Pool Shipping Company, Limited, in favor of the United States, upon the same principles and measures of liability as in like cases in admiralty between private parties and with the same rights of appeal. * * * ””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Pool Shipping Co. v. United States

3. “What the Act authorizes the Court to ascertain and allow is the “amount of the legal damages sustained by reason of said collision.” Of these interest is no part. It might be in the case of the detention of money. But this is not a claim for the detention of money, nor can any money be said to have been detained. When a jury finds a man guilty of a tort or a crime it may determine not only the facts but also a standard of conduct which he is presumed to have known and was bound at his peril to follow. . . . But legal fiction never reached the height of holding a defendant bound to know the estimate that a jury would put upon the damage that he had caused. [T]he cause of action is the damage, not the detention of money to be paid for it”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 471 F. Supp. 1186 - Southern Pacific Transportation Co. v. United States