Red Ball Motor Freight, Inc. v. Shannon’s Empirical Analysis
1964
Citation profile
12 federal appellate · 2 district · 38 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 88 later decisions (3 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2016 · most notably Griffin v. State of Maryland (1964), Barr v. City of Columbia (1964)
12 federal appellate · 2 district · 38 state decisions — followed in 10 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.
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1336 · 49 U.S.C. § 303
Relies on National Labor Relations Board v. Hearst Publications, Inc. · Gray v. Powell · Red Ball Motor Freight, Inc. v. Shannon · National Labor Relations Board v. Pittsburgh Steamship Co. · United States v. Drum
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 88 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““ ‘If the facts establish that the primary business of an operator is the supplying of transportation for compensation then the carrier’s status is established though the operator may be the owner, at the time, of the goods transported and may be transporting them for the purpose of sale. ... If, on the other hand, the primary business of an operator is found to be manufacturing or some other noncarrier commercial enterprise, then it must be determined whether the motor operations are in bona fide furtherance of the primary business or whether they are conducted as a related or secondary enterprise with the purpose of profiting from the transportation performed. In our opinion, they cannot be both.’ ” (Red Ball Motor Freight v. Shannon (1964), 377 U.S. 311, 315 , 12 L. Ed. 2d 341, 344 , 84 S. Ct. 1260, 1262-63 , quoting Lenoir Chair Co., 51 M.C.C. 65, 75, aff’d sub now,. Brooks Transportation Co. v. United States (E.D. Va. 1950), 93 F. Supp. 517 , aff'd (1951), 340 U.S. 925 , 95 L. Ed. 668 , 71 S. Ct. 501 .)”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““A typical buy-and-sell arrangement is one under which the character ‘buys’ property at a shipping point, transports it to a delivery point and there ‘sells’ it to the real purchaser, the ‘profit’ to the carrier amounting to the price of the transportation between the two points.” 377 U.S. at 313-314 , 84 S.Ct. at 1262 .”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““In developing and applying the primary business standard, the ICC has elaborated criteria characteristic of the spurious buy-and-sell device. Among these are the large investment of assets or payroll in transportation operations ; negotiating the sale of goods transported in advance of dispatching a truck to pick them up; direct delivery of the transported goods from the truck to the ultimate buyer, rather than from warehoused stocks; solicitation of the order by the supplier rather than the truck owner; and inclusion in the sales price of an amount to cover transportation costs.” 377 U.S. at 318-319 , 84 S.Ct. at 1264 , 12 L.Ed.2d at 346-347 .”
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.