Talk:United States v. Morgan (1953)

Latest comment: 6 years ago by Wbm1058 in topic Requested move 29 May 2017

Requested move 29 May 2017 edit

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: pages moved. wbm1058 (talk) 08:39, 6 June 2017 (UTC)Reply



– There are several US cases with the name United States v. Morgan. US Federal Courts distinguish cases with the same name with the year in parentheses after the case name. I am requesting two moves:

  • First, change the current United States v. Morgan to add the year (1953) to distinguish this case from other cases with the same name.
  • Second, change the United States v. Morgan (disambiguation) to United States v. Morgan so that if someone searches for United States v. Morgan, this will assist in finding the correct case. Chipermc (talk) 18:25, 29 May 2017 (UTC)Reply
  • Support. kennethaw88talk 03:12, 31 May 2017 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose. There are only two articles subject to disambiguation with this name at Wikipedia: United States v. Morgan and United States v. Morgan (1954). When there are only two articles WP:TWODABS controls: the primary topic article resides at the unparenthesized name, with a hatnote directing to the other.
There's a good reason for this: a Wikipedia reader will most likely land on the right, primary-topic page; if not, the reader is only one click away from the desired article. But forcing everyone to a disambiguation page means that all readers will have to click through to get to a meaningful article.
I will also note that my sense is that it is United States v. Morgan (1954) that is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC here (a precedential Supreme Court case; as compared to the other one, a district court case), so the parenthesizing scheme is reversed in this instance; but that's a different discussion.
I also think that, in this instance, the 1954 case will likely continue to be the primary topic, even if other similarly-captioned articles are created; and so United States v. Morgan should be the article name for the 1954 case regardless; its hatnote should send readers to the 1953 district court case if no new Morgan articles are created; or to a "(disambiguation)" page if they are created. TJRC (talk) 20:19, 31 May 2017 (UTC)Reply
  • Tentatively support; now that there's a third article, WP:TWODABS no longer applies. The only question is whether there is a primary topic. If there is one, it seems to me it must be one of the two Supreme Court cases, either United States v. Morgan, 313 U.S. 409 (1941); or United States v. Morgan, 346 U.S. 502 (1954). I've only looked at Google Scholar, but it looks as though both cases are more-or-less evenly cited; I see 1,623 cites for the 1941 case and 1,846 cites for the 1954 one. Based on that, they seem to be essentially the same level of primacy, and I tentatively support having United States v. Morgan point to the disambiguation page on the basis that neither case is the primary topic. If someone does more analysis than my very shallow work here, I might change my position, but for now, I'll support. TJRC (talk) 22:59, 5 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose. I agree that United States v. Morgan (1954) is the primary topic here, and this article should be re-titled to "United States v. Morgan (1953)" or "United States v. Morgan (S.D.N.Y. 1953)." -- Notecardforfree (talk) 08:02, 2 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
    • Upon further consideration, I now see that United States v. Morgan (1941) is quite notable too. For that reason, I support the proposed move. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 02:40, 5 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
  • Support. There is now a third page, United States v. Morgan (1941). This is a landmark decision establishing the Morgan doctrine which cautions courts against deposing high ranking officials. There are approximately 90 published Federal Court cases with the title, United States v. Morgan. Each published case typically establishes a precedent, and therefore could conceivably be important enough to have its own Wiki page. With the third page, I hope this will overcome the objections raised in this discussion. -- chipermc (talk) 01:51, 5 June 2017 (UTC)Reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.