Pacific Postal Telegraph Cable Co. v. Fleischner’s Empirical Analysis
66 F. 899 · 1895
Citation profile
6 federal appellate ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently April 1921
6 federal appellate ·
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
Relies on William Parsons v. Bedford Breedlove · Stanley v. Supervisors of Albany · Primrose v. Western Union Telegraph Co. · Norris v. Jackson · Insurance Company v. Folsom
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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““If a telegraph company is unable, through a disarrangement of its lines or other cause, to do what it makes a business of doing, it must inform those who wish to employ it of the fact, and thus acquaint them with the advantage of employing other means. A telegraph company offers and is employed solely to effect the rapid communication of a message. The excuse for á failure to effect that communication that the company, when it made the contract, knew that it could not perform it, can hardly be deemed a valid one.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage““As has been said, plaintiff in error contracted to transmit and deliver this message. At the time its wires were down, and there was an impossibility in performing the contract as required. The general rule is that, when an impossibility of performance is known to the promisor, but is not known to the promisee, the former is liable in damages for failure to perform. 3 Am. & Eng. Enc. Law, subd. 73, p. 898, tit. ‘Contract’; 2 Parsons, Cont. 673.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.