Swift & Co. Packers v. Compania Colombiana Del Caribe, S. A.’s Empirical Analysis
339 U.S. 684 · 1950
Citation profile
821 federal appellate · 82 district · 32 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,325 later decisions (41 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2026 · most notably Mitchell v. Forsyth (1985), Piper Aircraft Co. v. Reyno (1982)
821 federal appellate · 82 district · 32 state decisions
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
reviewedSwift & Co. Packers v. Compania Colombiana Del Caribe, S. A. (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp. · Cobbledick v. United States · Koster v. Lumbermens Mut Casualty Co · Canada Malting Co. v. Paterson Steamships, Ltd.
Cited together with Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp. · Gulf Oil Corporation v. Gilbert · Cobbledick v. United States · Rea v. The Eclipse · Stack v. Boyle
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 1,325 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“would be an empty rite after the vessel had been released and the restoration of the attachment only theoretically possible.”
19 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“fall in that small class which finally determine claims of right separable from, and collateral to, rights asserted in the action, too important to be denied review and too independent of the cause itself to require that appellate consideration be deferred until the whole case is adjudicated.”
12 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[in] such a situation the rights of all the parties can be adequately protected while the litigation on the main claim proceeds.”
12 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.