Reed v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
78 U.S. 591 · 1870
Citation profile
41 federal appellate · 33 district · 14 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 158 later decisions (13 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 1993 · most notably Cosmopolitan Shipping Co. v. McAllister (1949), Guzman v. Pichirilo (1962)
41 federal appellate · 33 district · 14 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.
Relationships
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 158 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““There are, however, two kinds of contracts passing under the general name of ‘charter party,’ differing from each other very widely in their nature, their provisions, and in their legal effect. In one. the owner lets the use of liis shipi to freight, he himself retaining the legal possession, and being liable to all the responsibilities of owner. The master is liis agent, and the mariners are in his employment, and he is answerable for their conduct. The charterer obtains no right of control over the vessel, hut the owner is in fact and in contemplation of law the carrier of whatever goods are conveyed in his ship. The charter party is a mere covenant for the transportation of merchandise or the performance of the service which is stipulated in it. In the other the vessel is herself let to hire, and the charterer takes her into his own possession. It is a contract for a lease of the vessel. The owner parts with possession and the right of possession, and the hirer has not only the use, but the entire control, of the vessel herself. He becomes the owner during- the term of the contract. He appoints the master and mariners, and is responsible for their acts. If goods are taken on freight, the freight is due to him; and if. by the barratry or other misconduct of the master or crew, the shippers suffer a loss, ho must answer for it. If he ships liis own goods, he is his own carrier. Under a charter party of the former description the charterer may hire the use of the whole vesse”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Unless the ship herself is let to hire, and the owner parts with the possession, and command and navigation of the same, the charterer or freighter is not to be regarded as the owner for. the voyage. . . . Courts of justice are not inclined to regard the contract as a demise of the .ship if the end in view can conveniently be accomplished without the transfer of the vessel to the charterer.”
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.