Mitchell v. Mitchell Truck Line, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis
286 F.2d 721 · 1961
Citation profile
69 federal appellate · 8 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 107 later decisions — most recently July 2023 · most notably Rush Pettway, Etc. v. American Cast Iron Pipe Company, United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Intervenor (1974), Puerto Rico v. SS Zoe Colocotroni (1980)
69 federal appellate · 8 district · 1 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
Applies 25 U.S.C. § 254 · 29 U.S.C. § 206 (Equal Pay Act of 1963) · 29 U.S.C. § 216
Relies on Skidmore v. Swift & Co. · Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co. · Bigelow v. RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. · Story Parchment Co. v. Paterson Parchment Paper Co. · Steiner v. Mitchell
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 107 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"When the employer has kept proper and accurate records the employee may easily discharge his burden by securing the production of those records. But where the employer's records are inaccurate or inadequate and the employee cannot offer convincing substitutes a more difficult problem arises. The solution, however, is not to penalize the employee by denying him any recovery on the ground he is unable to prove the precise extent of uncompensated work. Such a result would place a premium on an employer's failure to keep proper records in conformity with his statutory duty; it would allow the employer to keep the benefits of an employee's labors without paying due compensation as contemplated by the Fair Labor Standards Act. In such a situation we hold that an employee has carried out his burden if he proves that he has in fact performed work for which he was improperly compensated and if he produces sufficient evidence to show the amount and extent of that work as a matter of just and reasonable inference. The burden then shifts to the employer to come forward with evidence of the precise amount of work performed or with evidence to negative the reasonableness of the inference to be drawn from the employee's evidence. If the employer fails to produce such evidence, the court may then award damages to the employee, even though the result be only approximate. See Note, 43 Col.L.Rev. 355".”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“was laboring [under] a misconception of the legal standard to be followed.”
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.