Davis v. Department of Labor & Industries’s Empirical Analysis
317 U.S. 249 · 1942
Citation profile
290 federal appellate · 35 district · 298 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 852 later decisions (93 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2025 · most notably Gulf Oil Corporation v. Gilbert (1947), Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki (1946)
290 federal appellate · 35 district · 298 state decisions — followed in 23 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.
Relationships
Relies on Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen · Knickerbocker Ice Co. v. Stewart · SC Hwy. Dept. v. Barnwell Bros. · Alaska Packers Ass'n v. Industrial Accident Commission
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 852 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“any guiding, definite rule to determine the extent of state power in advance of litigation,”
27 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“may not validly be provided by State law.”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“It would seem, therefore, that although apparently some heed must still be paid to the line between State and Federal authority as laid down in the cases following the Jensen case, the most important question has now become the fixing of the boundaries of the new `twilight zone,' and for this the case gives us no rule or test other than the indefinable and subjective test of doubt. Mr. Justice Frankfurter says that `Theoretic illogic is inevitable so long as the employee * * * is permitted to recover' at his choice under either act. 317 U.S. at page 259, 63 S.Ct. at page 230. Probably therefore our proper course is not to attempt to reason the matter through and to reconcile previous authorities, or to preserve fine lines of distinction, but rather simply to recognize the futility of attempting to reason logically about `illogic,' and to regard the Davis case as intended to be a revolutionary decision deemed necessary to escape an intolerable situation and as designed to include within a wide circle of doubt all water front cases involving aspects pertaining both to the land and to the sea where a reasonable argument can be made either way, even though a careful examination of numerous previous decisions might disclose an apparent weight of authority one way or the other.”
2 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.