CSX Transportation, Inc. v. Easterwood’s Empirical Analysis
1993
Citation profile
404 federal appellate · 169 district · 687 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,023 later decisions (33 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2025 · most notably Medtronic, Inc. v. Lohr (1996), Wyeth v. Levine (2009)
404 federal appellate · 169 district · 687 state decisions — followed in 43 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
reviewedEasterwood v. CSX Transportation, Inc. (from Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 23 U.S.C. § 130 · 45 U.S.C. § 421
Relies on Shaw v. Delta Air Lines, Inc. · Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp. · Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc. · Fidelity Federal Savings and Loan Association v. D Cuesta · Morales v. Trans World Airlines, Inc.
Cited together with Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc. · Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp. · Medtronic, Inc. v. Lohr · Norfolk Southern Railway Co. v. Shanklin · Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, 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 2,023 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Laws, regulations, and orders related to railroad safety shall be nationally uniform to the extent practicable. A State may adopt or continue in force a law, regulation, or order related to railroad safety until the Secretary of Transportation prescribes a regulation or issues an order covering the subject matter of the State requirement. A State may adopt or continue in force an additional or more stringent law, regulation, or order related to railroad safety when the law, regulation, or order— (1) is necessary to eliminate or reduce an essentially local safety hazard; (2) is not incompatible with a law, regulation, or order of the United States Government; and (3) does not unreasonably burden interstate commerce.”
64 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“should be understood as covering the subject matter of train speed with respect to track conditions, including the conditions posed by grade crossings.”
51 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“In short, for projects in which federal funds participate in the installation of warning devices, the Secretary has determined the devices to be installed and the means by which railroads are to participate in their selection. The Secretary’s regulations therefore cover the subject matter of state law which, like the tort law on which respondent relies, seeks to impose an independent duty on a railroad to identify and/or repair dangerous crossings.”
49 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.