The Merrimac’s Empirical Analysis
81 U.S. 199 · 1871
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 9 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 26 later decisions (4 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 1982 · most notably Butler v. Boston & Savannah Steamship Co. (1889), The John G. Stevens (1898)
4 federal appellate · 9 district · 1 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
Relies on United States v. Ballard
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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Most collisions are inevitable at the moment they occur, but the primary rule is that precautions must be seasonable and if they are not * * * and a collision ensues in consequence of the delay, it is no valid defense to say that nothing could be done at the moment to prevent the [collision]. * * * inability to prevent a collision usually exists at the time it occurs, but it is generally an easy matter to trace the cause of the disaster to some negligent or unskillful act, or to some antecedent omission of duty on the part of one or the other or both of the colliding vessels.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““Port regulations are supposed to be known to tbe shipowner before he sends his vessel on the voyage, and the general rule is that in sending her to any particular port he elects to submit to lawful regulations established, at that port. * * *””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. The Energia
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.