Insurance Company v. Dunham’s Empirical Analysis
78 U.S. 1 · 1870
Citation profile
156 federal appellate · 99 district · 27 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 494 later decisions (38 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2024 · most notably Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen (1917), Wilburn Boat Company v. Fireman's Fund Insurance Company (1955)
156 federal appellate · 99 district · 27 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.
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 494 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Secondly, as to contracts, it has been equally settled that the English rule, which concedes jurisdiction, with a few exceptions, only to contracts made upon the sea, and to be executed thereon (making locality the test), is entirely inadmissible, and that the true criterion is in the nature and subject-matter of the contract, as whether it was a maritime contract having reference to maritime service or maritime transactions.””
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““ It thus appears that in each case the decision of the court, and the reasoning on which it was founded, have been based upon the fundamental inquiry whether the contract was or was not a maritime contract. If it was, the jurisdiction was asserted; if it was not, the jurisdiction was denied. And whether maritime or not maritime depended not on the place where the contract was made, but on the subject-matter of the contract. If that was maritime, the contract was maritime. This may be regarded as the established doctrine of the court.””
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States is not limited either by the restraining statutes or the judicial prohibitions of England, but is to be interpreted by a more enlarged view of its essential nature and objects, and with reference to analogous jurisdictions in other countries constituting the maritime commercial world * * *.”
3 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.