Schulz v. Pennsylvania Railroad’s Empirical Analysis
1956
Citation profile
375 federal appellate · 20 district · 72 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 562 later decisions (24 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 2020 · most notably Hamling v. United States (1974), The Boeing Company v. Daniel C. Shipman (1969)
375 federal appellate · 20 district · 72 state decisions — followed in 21 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
reviewedAlma Schulz, Administratrix of the Estate of August M. Schulz, Plaintiff v. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 45 U.S.C. § 51 (Federal Employers' Liability Act)
Relies on McAllister v. United States · Lavender v. Kurn · Tennant v. Peoria & Pekin Union Railway Co. · In Re Disbarment of Isserman · Bailey v. Central Vermont Railway, Inc.
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 562 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]he very essence of [the jury's] function is to select from among conflicting inferences and conclusions that which it considers most reasonable.”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““In considering the scope of the issues entrusted to juries in cases like this, it must be borne in mind that negligence cannot be established by direct, precise evidence such as can be used to show that a piece of ground is or is not an acre. Surveyors can measure an acre. But measuring negligence is different. The definitions of negligence are not definitions at all, strictly speaking. Usually one discussing the subject will say that negli gence consists of doing that which a person of reasonable prudence would not have done, or of failing to do that which a person of reasonable prudence would have done under like circumstances. Issues of negligence, therefore, call for the exercise of common sense and sound judgment under the circumstances of particular cases.””
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“"* * * The evidence of such alleged negligence was slight * * * there was no showing whatsoever that the alleged conditions were causally related to the accident. Plaintiff never contended that the ice completely covered the barges or that the pier or the barges were entirely shrouded in darkness. We have no way of knowing how or where the accident occurred, and cannot say that it was proximately caused by any default on the part of the defendant. " (Emphasis supplied.)”
1 later decision 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.