Parker v. Motor Boat Sales, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

231 federal appellate · 42 district · 46 state decisions

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 480 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Harbor workers and longshoremen employed `in whole or in part upon the navigable waters' are clearly protected by this Federal Act; but employees such as decedent here, occupy that shadowy area within which, at some undefined and undefinable point, state laws can validly provide compensation. This Court has been unable to give any guiding, definite rule to determine the extent of state power in advance of litigation, and has held that the margins of state authority must `be determined in view of the surrounding circumstances as cases arise.' * * * The very closeness of the cases * * * has caused much serious confusion. * * * Yet, employees are asked to determine with certainty before bringing their actions that factual question over which courts regularly divide among themselves and within their own membership. As penalty for error, the injured individual may not only suffer serious financial loss through the delay and expense of litigation, but discover that his claim has been barred by the statute of limitations in the proper forum while he was erroneously pursuing it elsewhere.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Bethlehem Steel Co. v. Parker · Holland v. Harrison Brothers Dry Dock And Repair Yard, Inc.

2. “The main impetus for the longshoremen's * * * Act was the need to correct a gap made plain by decisions of this Court. We believe that there is only one interpretation of the proviso in § 3(a) which would accord with the aim of Congress; the field in which a state may not validly provide for compensation must be taken, for the purposes of the Act, as the same field which the Jensen line of decision excluded from state compensation laws. Without affirming or rejecting the constitutional implications of those cases, we accept them as the measure by which Congress intended to mark the scope of the Act they brought into existence.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs v. Perini North River Associates · Travelers Insurance v. Calbeck

3. “habitual performance of other and different duties on land cannot alter the fact that at the time of the accident he was riding in a boat on a navigable river, and it is in connection with that clearly maritime activity that the award was here made. Moreover, § 2(4) of the Act, 33 U.S.C.A. § 902 (4), expressly provides for its application to “employees (who) are employed ... in whole or in part upon the navigable waters of the United States.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Bienvenu v. Texaco, Inc. · Rist v. Pittsburgh & Conneaut Dock Co.