Butler v. Milner’s Empirical Analysis
1917
Citation profile
22 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 22 later decisions — most recently June 1959
22 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 Kansas City, Wyandotte & Northwestern Railroad v. Ryan · Sanders v. Wakefield · Sovereign Camp v. Thiebaud · Atyeo v. Kelsey · White v. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Co.
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 22 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The sole function of the jury is to return a verdict, but the matter does not rest there; before a judgment can be rightly entered upon the verdict the judge of the court must exercise a judicial function and approve or disapprove the verdict. It can not be doubted that frequently miscarriages of justice would be avoided by a more vigorous exercise of the trial court’s discretion in granting new trials. And it is doubtful if a weightier responsibility rests upon the judge of the district court than the proper exercise of this part of his judicial functions. At every session we affirm judgments which do not accord with our views of justice as presented by the printed record, but solely because we are obliged to assume that the trial judge, in refusing to grant a new trial, has added to the verdict of the jury the weight of his approval, after a full opportunity to see and hear the witnesses, which this court can not have.” (p. 266.)”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. State v. Frey““If on the other hand, the trial judge intended to give his approval to the verdict, we are bound by the result regardless of any opinion we might have as to the right or wrong of the judgment, because there is no ground for any suggestion that to deny a new trial would have been an abuse of discretion if the court approved the verdict. Indeed no suggestion of that kind is made. “For the reasons stated we think the judgment should be reversed and the cause remanded with directions that a new trial be granted, unless the trial court shall make a finding that it approves the verdict. In case the verdict is thus approved, the judgment will be affirmed.” (1. c. 268.)”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. West v. Lear
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.