Gulf Refining Co. v. Atlantic Mutual Insurance’s Empirical Analysis
279 U.S. 708 · 1929
Citation profile
10 federal appellate · 10 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 30 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 1965 · most notably Aetna Ins Co v. United Fruit Co Union Marine & General Ins Co (1938), Purofied Down Products Corp. v. Travelers Fire Insurance (1960)
10 federal appellate · 10 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedthe decision below (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on London Assurance v. Companhia De Moagens Do Barreiro · Moore v. Alaskan & Northwestern Territories Trading Co. · International Nav. Co. v. Atlantic Mut. Ins. · Clark v. United Fire & Marine Insurance
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 30 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The rule that the insured may recover in full for partial losses under hull insurance * * * does not, we think, militate against the coinsurance * * *. We need not determine whether the rule as to hull insurance may be regarded as that of this Court or of others, or pass upon its merits. The distinction between insurance on cargo and that on hulls is an old one and a different result in the case of the latter may for that reason be accepted without affecting the rule as to the former. Where the distinction has been regarded as established, the departure from the rule applied in case of particular average losses of cargo has been justified on the ground that damage to a hull is not customarily ascertained by its sale, as is the case with cargo. The usual practice in cases of partial loss is for the insured to make repairs. His repair bill represents a sum of money which is the amount of his damage, ascertained without regard to the ship’s value, and so the rule has been adopted as more convenient in practice than one re quiring determination of the sound value of the ship. * * * Some point is given to this explanation by the ruling in Pitman v. Universal Marine Insurance Co., L.R. 9 Q.B.D. 192, that the same rule should be applied as in particular average loss of cargoes, where the repairs were not in fact made and the loss was established by a sale of the ship.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“An agreement in a marine insurance policy “valuing the cargo ’ ’ insured thereby at a specified amount “is not a representation” but merely “a stipulation in effect, that, for purposes of computation of the insurance liability the cargo shall be taken at an agreed value.””
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.