Walters v. Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis
309 F.2d 191 · 1962
Citation profile
20 federal appellate · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 34 later decisions — most recently February 2010 · most notably Huff v. Matson Navigation Co. (1964), Clevenger v. Star Fish & Oyster Co. (1963)
20 federal appellate · 4 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
Relies on Mitchell v. Trawler Racer, Inc. · Salem v. United States Lines Company · Boudoin v. Lykes Bros. Steamship Co. · Jamison v. Encarnacion · Safeway Stores, Inc. v. Oklahoma Retail Grocers Ass'n
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 34 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In those assault cases in which the issue of unseaworthiness has been held properly submissible to a jury, the hallmark has been either an assault with a dangerous weapon or independent evidence of the assailant’s exceptionally quarrelsome natui’e, his habitual drunkenness, his severe personality disorder, or other similar factors.... In the case before us, we need not rest our holding upon the absence of a dangerous weapon, for aside from the unfortunate instant encounter, there is no evidence to support a finding of a background of even mildly unusual character on the part of Shannon, let alone a vicious and savage one. While it is true that in 1936, Shannon, along with other individuals, entered a plea of guilty to an assault charge arising from a maritime labor dispute and received a six-month sentence with time off for good behavior, he was employed by the defendant in 1938, and served without incident for twenty years, until the date of this shipboard fracas. There was no testimony whatever of any previous display of ill temper by Shannon.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““Seamen’s brawls are not uncommon either on board ship or off. The confinement of the ship’s frame, the forced continuous interaction of the members of a crew, the cramped living conditions, the ennui which often accompanies shipboard routine, are factors which often induce conditions which enflame those who possess short tempers and occasionally even those respected for even temperedness.” Walters v. Moore-McCormack Lines, 309 F.2d 191 (2d Cir. 1962).”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“The Supreme Court has held that a willful attack by a seaman upon an inferior in order to further the interest of the employer is a species of “negligence” for which the Jones Act makes the employer liable.. . . The test to be employed is whether the attack was with the intention of furthering the personal interests of the assailant or the interests of the employer. (Id. at 195).”
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.