The Sapphire’s Empirical Analysis
85 U.S. 51 · 1873
Citation profile
14 federal appellate · 11 district · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 50 later decisions (9 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 1990 · most notably United States v. Reliable Transfer Co. (1975), Mondou v. New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad (1912)
14 federal appellate · 11 district · 2 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. Buzzo
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 50 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It is undoubtedly the rule in admiralty that where both vessels are in fault the sums representing the damage sustained by each must be added together and the aggregate divided between the two. This is in effect deducting the lesser from the greater and dividing the remainder. ...”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Dodd v. Varady““We do not say that a cross-libel is always necessary, in a case of collision, in order to enable claimants of an offending vessel to set off or recoup the damages sustained by such vessels, if both be found in fault.””
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.