Puerto Rico v. Russell & Co.’s Empirical Analysis
288 U.S. 476 · 1933
Citation profile
198 federal appellate · 85 district · 13 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 583 later decisions (46 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2024 · most notably Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills of Ala. (1957), Gully v. First Nat. Bank in Meridian (1936)
198 federal appellate · 85 district · 13 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
reviewedPeople of Porto Rico v. Havemeyer (from First Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Osborn v. President Directors and Company of the Bank of the United States · Albert Shulthis v. D a McDougal · Great Southern Fire Proof Hotel Co. v. Jones · Postal Telegraph Cable Co v. State of Alabama · Union Pac. Ry. Co. v. Myers
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 583 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““In its final form this rule of jurisdiction was stated in terms of a ‘conclusive presumption’ that the stockholders are citizens of the state of the corporate domicile, see Marshall v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., supra, 16 How. 328 , 14 L. Ed. 953 ; Covington Draw Bridge Co. v. Shepherd, supra, 20 How. 233 , 15 L. Ed. 896 ; St. Louis & San Francisco R. Co. v. James, supra, 161 U. S. 554 , 16 S. Ct. 621 , 40 L. Ed. 802 ; but even those who formulated the rule found its theoretical justification only in the complete legal personality with which corporations are endowed. Fictitious that personality may be, in the sense that the fact that the corporation is composed of a plurality of individuals, themselves legal persons, is disregarded, but ‘it is a fiction created by law with intent that it should be acted on as if true.’ Klein v. Board of Supervisors, 282 U. S. 19 , 24, 51 S. Ct. 15 , 16, 75 L. Ed. 140 , 73 A. L. R. 679 . This treatment of the aggregate for other purposes as a person distinct from its members, with capacity to perform all legal acts, made it possible and convenient to treat it so for purposes of federal jurisdiction as well. But status as a unit for purposes of suit alone, as in the case of a joint-stock company, see Chapman v. Barney, 129 U. S. 677 , 682, 9 S. Ct. 426 , 32 L. Ed. 800 ; Lever ing & Garrigues Co. v. Morrin (C. C. A.) 61 F.(2d) 115 , 117, or a limited partnership, not shown to have the other attributes of a corporation, Great Southern Fireproof Ho”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Federal jurisdiction may be invoked to vindicate a right or privilege claimed under a federal statute. It may not be invoked where the right asserted is non-federal, merely because the plaintiff's right to sue is derived from federal law, or because the property involved was obtained under federal statute. The federal nature of the right to be established is decisive.”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“for purposes of federal jurisdiction [no differently] than a corporation organized under that law.”
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.