Thomson v. United States’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

59 federal appellate · 18 district · 17 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 124 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The essential facts are clear. The Chicago and North Western Railway Company, hereinafter referred to as the railroad, has extensive mileage in nine western states and is a large carrier of freight in less than carload lots. Prior to and since the statutory ‘grandfather’ date of June 1, 1935, it has supplemented its rail freight service by providing motor vehicle service between various freight stations on its rail lines. There are twenty-three such motor vehicle routes on highways parallel with and roughly adjacent to the railroad’s lines. The motor trucks transport less than carload lots of freight in complete coordination with the rail service. The railroad instituted this additional method of transportation in order to furnish an improved and more convenient freight service to the public in certain areas of light traffic and in order to curtail car mileage and way-freight service. Motor vehicle transportation, in other words, is merely a new method of carrying on part of its all-rail freight business in which it has been engaged for many years.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. AMERICAN TRUCKING ASS'NS v. United States · West Virginia Motor Truck Ass'n v. Public Service Commission

2. ““The provisions and actual operation of the contracts with the operators demonstrate the railroad’s rigid control over the movement of the freight * * * The operators are ‘independent’ only by grace of contract nomenclature. By any realistic test they are mere aids in carrying out a part of the railroad’s coordinated rail-motor freight service. ’ ’”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State v. Northern Pacific Railway Co. · Sanford v. Goodridge

3. ““Plaintiff says that the commission is in error in holding that its operations (in carrying without responsibility) come within the description of contract carriage. It urges that it is not a carrier at all, so far as its contracts without responsibility are concerned, because it is not a bailee of the goods but merely a lessor of the vehicle. It prefers to call its clients not shippers but lessees. The commission, on the other hand, found that even when plaintiff turned the driver and truck over to a ‘lessee’ who then used that vehicle for its own purposes prescribing routes, there still remained a ‘presumption’ of control by the plaintiff which brought it within the category of a contract carrier under the act. “We are confident that the commission was right in its determination. Whether the legal relationship between the plaintiff and its shippers could be brought within the confines of a common-law bailment is not the important question. The real issue to be decided is whether under this particular statute the commission was right in holding, even with respect to contracts without responsibility, that plaintiff is a ‘person which, under individual contracts or agreements, engages in the transportation * * * by motor vehicle of passengers or property in interstate or foreign commerce for compensation.’ Interstate Commerce Act, part II, sec. 203(a) (15). We emphasize that we are not speaking of cases where plaintiff merely furnishes the equipment, and the drivers are suppli”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 78 F. Supp. 13 - Interstate Commerce Commission v. F & F Truck Leasing Co.