Supreme Court of the United States, 1957

Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway Co. v. Gibson

Supreme Court of the United States · Decided December 9, 1957 · Frankfurter, Harlan

355 U.S. 897; 78 S. Ct. 270; 2 L. Ed. 2d 193; 1957 U.S. LEXIS 102 (United States Reports)

Counsel

Harlan L. Hackbert for petitioner. Justin Waitkus for respondent.

Cases that cite this one

11 later published cases cite this decision.

Union Asbestos & Rubber Company v. The Paltier Corporation (7th Cir. 1962)
United States v. Frank R. Coppola (2d Cir. 1960)
Beezer v. City of Seattle (Wash. 1963)
Seufert v. Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. (United States District Court for the Southern District of California 2016)
Louisiana & Arkansas Railway Co. v. Gary (Tex. App. 1989)
Carlew v. BURLINGTON NORTHERN RR CO. (Ala. 1987)
St. Louis Southwestern Railway Co. v. Greene (Tex. App. 1977)
Wyman W. Graeber v. B. J. Rhay, as Superintendent of the Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla, Washington (9th Cir. 1958)
Breckline v. Metropolitan Life Insurance (Pa. 1962)
Harris v. Pennsylvania Railroad (Supreme Court of the United States 1959)
Perion v. United Fruit Co. (Md. 1961)

This list shows which later cases cite this one. It does not say how they treated it, and no review of that has been done. Not a substitute for Shepard’s or KeyCite — verify before relying.

Opinion of the Court

C. A. 7th Cir. Certiorari denied.

Memorandum of

Mr. Justice Frankfurter, in which Mr. Justice Harlan joins.

Although the Court has definitively decided that a denial of a petition for certiorari carries no legal significance, Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443, 489-497, the bar, in briefs, and lower courts, in their opinions, continue to note such denials by way of reinforcing the authority of cited lower court decisions. It has therefore seemed to me appropriate from time to time to emphasize through concrete illustrations that a denial of certiorari does not imply approval of the decision for which review is sought or of its supporting opinion. This case presents another instance for underlining this nonsignificance of the denial of certiorari. Not until this Court explicitly holds that “in F. E. L. A. cases, speculation, conjecture and possibilities suffice to support a jury verdict,” which is the holding of the Court of Appeals in this case, 246 F. 2d 834, 837, is that to be assumed to be the law of this Court.

Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.