Maryland Casualty Co. v. Pacific Coal & Oil Co.’s Empirical Analysis
312 U.S. 270 · 1941
Citation profile
1,199 federal appellate · 799 district · 217 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 4,775 later decisions (89 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2026 · most notably Warth v. Seldin (1975), City of Los Angeles v. Lyons (1983)
1,199 federal appellate · 799 district · 217 state decisions — followed in 32 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
reviewedMaryland Casualty Co. v. Pacific Coal & Oil Co. (from Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Aetna Life Ins Co of Hartford Conn v. Haworth · Nashville St Ry v. Wallace · Maryland Casualty Co. v. Consumers Finance Service, Inc. of Pennsylvania · C. E. Carnes & Co. v. Employers' Liability Assur. Corp., Ltd. of London
Cited together with Aetna Life Ins Co of Hartford Conn v. Haworth · Golden v. Zwickler · Public Serv. Comm'n of Utah v. Wycoff Co. · Steffel v. Thompson · Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner
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 4,775 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“whether the facts alleged, under all the circumstances, show that there is a substantial controversy, between parties having adverse legal interests, of sufficient immediacy and reality to warrant the issuance of a declaratory judgment.”
332 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Id. 5 At least at the moment that the insurer has suffered a legal judgment requiring it to make payment to the insured, that insurer has a sufficient interest in recovery against third parties who allegedly caused the injury to create an actual controversy within the meaning of the Declaratory Judgment Act. The United States Supreme Court has stated the test for an actual controversy under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2201 as whether”
14 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a statutory right to proceed against [the insurer] by supplemental process and action if he obtains a final judgment against the insured which the latter does not satisfy within thirty days after its rendition.”
5 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.