Railroad Company v. Fort’s Empirical Analysis
84 U.S. 553 · 1873
Citation profile
20 federal appellate · 49 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 93 later decisions (8 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 1936 · most notably The Osceola (1903), Hough v. Railway Co. (1879)
20 federal appellate · 49 state decisions — followed in 21 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.
Relationships
Relies on The Star of Hope
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 93 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““For the consequences of this hasty action the company are liable, either upon the maxim of respondeat superior, or upon the obligations arising out of the contract of service. The order of Collett was their order. They cannot escape responsibility on the plea that he should not have given it. Having intrusted to him the care and management of the machinery, and in so doing made it his rightful duty to adjust it when displaced, and having placed the boy under him with directions to obey him, they must pay the penalty for the tortious act he committed in the course of the employment. If they are not the insurers of the lives and limbs of their employés, they do impliedly engage that they will not expose them to the hazard of losing their lives, or suffering great bodily harm, when it is neither reasonable nor necessary to do so. The very able judge who tried the case instructed the jury on the point at issue in conformity with these views, and we see no error in the record.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““The employs In entering the service of the principal is presumed to take upon himself the risks incident to the undertaking, among which are to be counted the negligence of fellow servants.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““Whether this proposition, as stated, be true or not, we do not propose to consider, because, if true, it has no application to this case.””
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.