New York Cent Co v. Ambrose’s Empirical Analysis
280 U.S. 486 · 1930
Citation profile
88 federal appellate · 3 district · 46 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 180 later decisions (16 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 1970 · most notably Gunning v. Cooley (1930), Brady v. Southern Railway Co. (1943)
88 federal appellate · 3 district · 46 state decisions — followed in 14 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.
Relationships
Relies on Patton v. Texas & Pacific Railway Co. · Chicago St Ry Co v. Coogan · Ambrose v. New York Central Railroad
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 180 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““In any view of the matter, the respondent (plaintiff), upon whom lay the burden, completely failed to prove that the accident was proximately due to the negligence of the company. It follows that the verdict rests only upon speculation and conjecture, and can not be allowed to stand. C. M. & St. P. Ry. v. Coogan, 271 U. S. 472, 478 , and cases cited. “The utmost that can be said is, that the accident may have resulted from any one of several causes, for some of which the company was responsible, and for some of which it was not. This is not enough. See Patton v. Texas & Pacific R. Co., 179 U. S. 658 , where, at page 663, this court said: “ ‘The fact of accident carries with it no presumption of negligence on the part of the employer, and it is an affirmative fact for the injured employe to establish that the employer has been guilty of negligence * * * it is not sufficient for the employe to show that the employer may have been guilty of negligence —the evidence must point to the fact that he was. And where the testimony leaves the matter uncertain and shows that any one of half a dozen things may have brought about the injury, for some of which the employer is responsible and for some of which he is not, it is not for the jury to guess between these half a dozen causes and find that the negligence of the employer was the real cause, when there is no satisfactory foundation in the testimony for that conclusion. If the employe is unable to adduce sufficient evidence to show n”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“`The utmost that can be said is that the accident may have resulted from any one of several causes, for some of which the company was responsible, and for some of which it was not. This is not enough.' [See, also, Lynch v. Delaware, L. W. Railroad Co. (C.C.A.), 58 F.2d 177 ; Pennsylvania Railroad Co. v. Chamberlain, 288 U.S. 333 , 53 Sup. Ct. 391, 77 L.Ed. 819 .]”
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.