Owens v. Union Pacific Railroad’s Empirical Analysis
319 U.S. 715 · 1943
Citation profile
20 federal appellate · 32 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 66 later decisions (12 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 1993 · most notably Urie v. Thompson (1949), Packard Motor Car Co. v. National Labor Relations Board (1947)
20 federal appellate · 32 state decisions — followed in 12 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
reviewedUnion Pac. R. v. Owens (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Mondou v. New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad · Tiller v. Atlantic Coast Line Railroad · Seaboard Air Line Railway v. Horton · Schlemmer v. Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburg Railway Co. · Gila Valley Globe Northern Railway Company v. John Hall
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 66 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"The common-law defenses, assumption of risk, contributory negligence, and the fellow-servant rule were originated and developed in common ground. Not entirely identical in conception, they conjoined and overlapped in many applications. The overlapping areas first concealed, then created a confusion • which only served to create more; so that in time the three became more, rather than less, indistinguishable. And assumption of risk took over also, in misguided appellation, large regions of the law of negligence. What in fact was absence of departure from due care by the defendant came to be labelled 'assumption of risk’." [footnotes omitted] [Emphasis supplied.]”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“and causes of it.; Neither conclusion accords with applicable federal standards in such cases. If the latter was the court’s intention, the matter was at most one for permitting amendment or cure by proof; if the former, the conclusion. ran in the teeth both of federal and of generally accepted standards for showing negligence. 18 Nor do we find merit in respondent’s contention that Urie, prior to the 1939 amendment abolishing assumption of risk as a defense to ordinary negligence suits under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act; 45 U. S. C. § 54 , 53 Stat. 1404 , amending 35 Stat. 66 , assumed, the risk of injury. Nothing in Urie’s original complaint remotely suggests such knowledge on his part of the likelihood of contracting silicosis as would justify the conclusion that Urie “anticipated and decided to chance the particular risk . . . .”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Urie v. Thompson“anticipated and decided to chance the particular risk . . . .”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Urie v. Thompson
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.