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← 339 U.S. 96 - Affolder v. New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad

Affolder v. New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad’s Empirical Analysis

339 U.S. 96 · 1950

Citation profile

499
cited by 499 later decisions
20
cited 20 times by the Supreme Court
14
states following
March 2025
most recently cited

324 federal appellate · 9 district · 90 state decisions

How this case has been cited

Cited by 499 later decisions (20 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2025 · most notably City of Los Angeles v. Heller (1986), Ferguson v. Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc. (1957)

324 federal appellate · 9 district · 90 state decisions — followed in 14 states

203019501960197019801990200020102020decided

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

reviewedNEW YORK, C. & ST. L. R. CO. v. Affolder (from Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals)

Relationships

Relies on Wilkerson v. McCarthy · O'Donnell v. Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway Co. · Barry v. Edmunds · Carter v. Atlanta & St. Andrews Bay Railway Co.

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

  1. “the coupler was placed in a position to operate on impact.”
    10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
    e.g. Norfolk & Western Railway Co. v. Hiles · McGowan v. Denver & R. G. W. R. Co.
  2. “neither evidence of negligence nor of diligence and care was to be considered on the question of this liability.”
    5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
    e.g. Smith v. Aberdeen, Carolina & Western Railway Co. · Kansas City Southern Railway Co. v. Cagle
  3. “We agree with the Court of Appeals that the amount of damages awarded by the District Court's judgment is not monstrous in the circumstances of this case. * * *”
    4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
    e.g. Levine v. Mills · Wetherbee v. Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Ry. Co.

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.