Colonial American Life Insurance v. Commissioner’s Empirical Analysis
1989
Citation profile
11 federal appellate · 3 district · 20 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 104 later decisions (5 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2023 · most notably Hartford Fire Insurance Co v. California Merrett Underwriting Agency Management Limited (1993), Commissioner v. Merit Life Insurance (1989)
11 federal appellate · 3 district · 20 state decisions
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
reviewedColonial American Life Insurance v. Commissioner (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 26 U.S.C. § 263 (Interest Equalization Tax Act) · 26 U.S.C. § 809
Relies on Oneida Motor Freight, Inc. v. United Jersey · Woodward v. Commissioner · Newland v. Georgia · Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Idaho Power Company · Massey Motors, Inc. v. United States
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 104 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“it is the ceding company that remains directly liable to its policyholders, and that continues to pay claims and collect premiums. The indemnity reinsurer assumes no direct liability to the policyholders. Instead, it agrees to indemnify, or reimburse, the ceding company for a specified percentage of the claims and expenses attributable to the risks that have been reinsured, and the ceding company turns over to it a like percentage of the premiums generated by the insurance of those risks.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The term “return premiums” more naturally refers to premiums that the insuring or reinsuring company has been paid and then must remit to the individual policyholder or ceding company, as, for example, pursuant to an experience-rated refund clause, which readjusts the amounts of policy premiums paid over to the ceding company to reflect unanticipated savings____a plausible reading of [“premiums and other consideration arising out of reinsurance ceded”] is that it refers only to payments from the ceding company to the reinsurer, as, for example, when the ceding company is simply passing on premiums it has received from a policyholder but is obligated to deliver to a reinsurer under an indemnity-reinsurance agreement. The “other consideration” phrase, while admittedly open ended, can be read in quite a sensible way as tagalong language that refers to analogous expenditures of this kind, rather than as a broad catchall provision that encompasses payments of any kind from any party____ § 809(c) in its entirety concerns gross income; deductions are treated in a separate subsection, § 809(d). We find it incredible that Congress, with but a whisper, would have tucked away in the fine points of its definition of premium income a deduction of this magnitude.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“(1) Premiums. The gross amount of premiums and other consideration (including advance premiums, deposits, fees, assessments, and consideration in respect of assuming liabilities under contracts not issued by the taxpayer) on insurance and annuity contracts (including contracts supplementary thereto); less return premi- urns, and premiums and other consideration arising out of reinsurance ceded....”
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.