Pennbarr Corp’s Empirical Analysis
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 8 district · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 31 later decisions — most recently April 2025 · most notably Pittston Company Ultramar America Limited v. Allianz Insurance Company Insco Irb Siat (1997), Chesapeake Paper Products Company v. Stone & Webster Engineering Corporation (1995)
4 federal appellate · 8 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 Sea-Land Service, Inc. v. Federal Maritime Commission · Weedo v. Stone-E-Brick, Inc. · Mellon Bank, N.A. v. Aetna Business Credit, Inc. · W.F. Development Corp. v. Office of the United States Trustee · Kampf v. Franklin Life Insurance
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 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““[A] policy of insurance is simply a contract and its provisions should, of course, be construed as in any other contract. A contract is ambiguous if it is susceptible of more than one meaning. However, a Court should not torture the language of [a] policy to create ambiguity. An insurance policy cannot be rewritten by the Court and is not ambiguous merely because it is complex. To discern whether the policy is ambiguous, we must, consider the words of the agreement, alternative meanings suggested by counsel, and extrinsic evidence offered in support of those meanings. Our goal is to decide whether there [are] objective indicia that, from the linguistic standpoint of the parties, the terms of the contract are susceptible of different meanings. Genuine ambiguity exists only where the phrasing of the policy is so confusing the average policy holder cannot makeout the boundaries of the coverage. Moreover, it is our responsibility to give effect to the whole policy, not just one part of it. A construction that gives reasonable meaning to all of the contract’s provisions is preferred to one which leaves a portion of the writing useless or inexplicable. Finally, we may not make a different or better contract than the parties themselves saw fit to enter.” Pennbarr Corp. v. Insurance Company of North America, 976 F.2d 145, 151 (3d Cir.1992). (emphasis added) (citations omitted).”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“In reviewing a denial of a motion for summary judgment, we apply the same standard that should have been applied by the district court.... We will reverse the decision to deny such a motion only if we find it plain that there is no genuine issue of material fact for trial. Our review of this question is plenary.”
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.