Pennsylvania Co v. Chamberlain’s Empirical Analysis
288 U.S. 333 · 1933
Citation profile
656 federal appellate · 50 district · 184 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,023 later decisions (17 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2017 · most notably Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. (1986), The Boeing Company v. Daniel C. Shipman (1969)
656 federal appellate · 50 district · 184 state decisions — followed in 29 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
reviewedChamberlain v. Pennsylvania R. (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Gunning v. Cooley · Patton v. Texas & Pacific Railway Co. · Improvement Company v. Munson · Chesapeake Ry Co v. Martin
Cited together with Gunning v. Cooley · Lavender v. Kurn · Chesapeake Ry Co v. Martin · Tennant v. Peoria & Pekin Union Railway Co. · Brady v. Southern Railway Co.
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 1,023 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“We, therefore, have a case belonging to that class of cases where proven facts give equal support to each of two inconsistent inferences; in which event, neither of them being established, judgment, as a matter of law, must go against the party upon whom rests the necessity of sustaining one of these inferences as against the other, before he is entitled to recover.”
14 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“* * * It repeatedly has been held by this court that before evidence may be left to the jury, `there is a preliminary question for the judge, not whether there is literally no evidence, but whether there is any upon which a jury can properly proceed to find a verdict for the party producing it, upon whom the onus of proof is imposed.' [Citing.] And where the evidence is `so overwhelmingly on one side as to leave no room to doubt what the fact is, the court should give a peremptory instruction to the jury.' [Citing.] The rule is settled for the federal courts, and for many of the state courts, that whenever in the trial of a civil case the evidence is clearly such that if a verdict were rendered for one of the parties the other would be entitled to a new trial, it is the duty of the judge to direct the jury to find according to the views of the court. * * * [Citing.] The scintilla rule has been definitely and repeatedly rejected so far as the federal courts are concerned. * * *”
11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“And the desired inference is precluded for the further reason that respondent's right of recovery depends upon the existence of a particular fact which must be inferred from proven facts, and this is not permissible in the face of the positive and otherwise uncontradicted testimony of unimpeached witnesses consistent with the facts actually proved, from which testimony it affirmatively appears that the fact sought to be inferred did not exist.”
10 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.