Kossick v. United Fruit Co.’s Empirical Analysis
1961
Citation profile
496 federal appellate · 136 district · 140 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,438 later decisions (32 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2024 · most notably East River Steamship Corp. v. Transamerica Delaval Inc. (1986), Vaughan v. Atkinson (1962)
496 federal appellate · 136 district · 140 state decisions — followed in 12 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
reviewedKossick v. United Fruit Co. (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 2401
Relies on Romero v. International Terminal Operating Co. · Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen · The Osceola · Wilburn Boat Company v. Fireman's Fund Insurance Company
Cited together with Wilburn Boat Company v. Fireman's Fund Insurance Company · Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen · Executive Jet Aviation, Inc. v. City of Cleveland · Norfolk Southern Railway Co. v. James N. Kirby, Pty Ltd. · Pope & Talbot, Inc. v. Hawn
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 1,438 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]he boundaries of admiralty jurisdiction over contracts--as opposed to torts or crimes--being conceptual rather than spatial, have always been difficult to draw.”
25 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“... the fact that maritime law is — in a special sense at least, (citations omitted) — federal law and therefore supreme by -virtue .of Article VI of the Constitution carries with it the implication that wherever a maritime interest is involved, no matter how slight or marginal, it must displace a local interest, no matter how pressing and significant. But the process is surely rather one of accommodation, entirely familiar in many areas of overlapping state and federal concern, or a process somewhat analogous to the normal conflict of laws situation where two sovereignties assert divergent interests in a transaction as to which both have some concern. Surely the. claim of federal supremacy is adequately served by the availability of a federal forum in the first instance and of review in this Court to provide assurance that the federal interest is correctly assessed and accorded due weight. (Emphasis ours).”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“whether the transaction relates to ships and vessels, masters and mariners, as the agents of commerce”
10 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.