Ferguson v. Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

328 federal appellate · 22 district · 103 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 638 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Under this statute the test of a jury case is simply whether the proofs justify with reason the conclusion that employer negligence played any part, even the slightest, in producing the injury or death for which damages are sought.”

   27 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Clark v. Central States Dredging Co. · Borras v. Sea-Land Service, Inc.

2. ““Respondent urges that it was not reasonably foreseeable that petitioner would utilize the knife to loosen the ice cream. But the jury, which plays a pre-eminent role in these Jones Act cases (Jacob v. New York City, 315 U.S. 752 [ 62 S.Ct. 854 , 88 L.Ed. 1166 ]; Schulz v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 350 U.S. 523 [ 78 S.Ct. 608 , 100 L.Ed. 668 ]), could conclude that petitioner had been furnished no safe tool to perform his task. It was not necessary that respondent be in a position to foresee the exact chain of circumstances which actually led to the accident. The jury was instructed that it might consider whether respondent could have anticipated that a knife would be used to get out the ice cream. On this record, fair-minded men could conclude that respondent should have foreseen that petitioner might be tempted to use a knife to perform his task with dispatch, since no adequate implement was furnished him. See Schulz v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 350 U.S. 523 , 526 [ 76 S.Ct. 608 , 100 L.Ed. 668 ]. Since the standard of liability under the Jones Act is that established by Congress under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, what we said in Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., ante, p. 500 [ 77 S.Ct. 443 ], decided this day, is relevant here: “ ‘Under this statute the test of a jury case is simply whether the proofs justify with reason the conclusion that employer negligence played any part, even the slightest, in producing the injury or death for which damages are sought.’ “Because the ”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Street v. Isthmian Lines, Inc. · Jamieson v. Woodward & Lothrop

3. “In my opinion due adherence to [the 'rule of four'] requires that once certiorari has been granted a case should be disposed of on the premise that it is properly here, in the absence of considerations appearing which were not manifest or fully apprehended at the time certiorari was granted. In [this case] I am unable to say that such considerations exist, even though I do think that the arguments on the merits underscored the views of those of us who originally felt that the cas[e] should not be taken because [it] involved only issues of fact, and presented nothing of sufficient general importance to warrant this substantial expenditure of the Court's time.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Board of Ed., Island Trees Union Free School Dist. No. 26 v. Pico · New York v. Uplinger