Aetna Life Insurance v. Moses’s Empirical Analysis
287 U.S. 530 · 1933
Citation profile
45 federal appellate · 28 district · 48 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 184 later decisions (18 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2007 · most notably United States v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co. (1949), Czaplicki v. the Hoegh Silvercloud (1956)
45 federal appellate · 28 district · 48 state decisions — followed in 17 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
reviewedÆtna Life Ins. v. Moses (from District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Liverpool & Great Western Steam Co. v. Phenix Insurance · Gussie Fox v. Dallas Hotel Co. · Hall Long v. The Railroad Companies · St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway Co. v. Commercial Union 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 184 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““(b) Acceptance of such compensation under an award in a compensation order filed by the deputy commissioner shall operate as an assignment to the employer of all right of the person entitled to compensation to recover damages against such third person.””
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““The statute contemplates that the payment of compensation should be secured by insurance, and nothing in it indicates that the insurer is to be denied an indemnitor’s rights. Subrogation is a normal incident of indemnity insurance.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““In this case the injury resulted in death of the employee, and the election to take compensation was made by the widow. As she is both the administratrix and the only person entitled to compensation, the election was validly exercised and we need not resolve possible doubts as to the proper person to make the election under other circumstances. Compare sections 33(a) and 33(b) with section 33(f). Her election has called into operation the statutory assignment so far as it applies to the action for wrongful death. We must decide its effect on that cause of action. (Emphasis supplied.) “The statute is not free from ambiguity. The right to recover for a wrongful death is the creature, not of the common law, but of a statute which confers the right on the personal representative of the deceased for the benefit of his next of kin under the local statute of distribution, some of whom may not be entitled to compensation under the Compensation Act. Nevertheless, section 33 (b) of the act provides that it is the ‘right of the person entitled to compensation to recover damages against such third person’ which is assigned to the employer by the election to take compensation. Reading this provision literally and alone, the employer, in the case of the wrongful death of his employee, would take nothing by the assignment which it purports to effect, since the person entitled to the compensation has no right to recover for the death. * * * “Concluding that, where the employer is given anyt”
2 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.