Cooley v. Carter-Wallace Inc.’s Empirical Analysis
1984
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 2 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 32 later decisions — most recently October 2017 · most notably Port Authority of New York & New Jersey v. Arcadian Corp. (1999), 76 F. Supp. 2d 422 - Anderson v. Hedstrom Corp. (1999)
2 federal appellate · 2 district ·
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.
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 32 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Theoretically, a consumer buys a product after evaluating the risks in its use. But the consumer is not on an equal footing with the manufacturer who is in a unique position to know the specific risks involved. The imposition of the duty to give a warning of some kind involves a balancing test which weighs the seriousness of potential harm to the consumer against the costs to the manufacturer. Since the cost of providing warnings is often minimal, the balance usually weighs in favor of an obligation to warn. Once a warning is given, the focus shifts to the adequacy of the warning.... Our courts have required ... that “[wjarnings must clearly alert the user to avoid certain [unsafe] uses of the product which would appear to be normal and reasonable” (Lancaster Silo & Block Co. v. Northern Propane Gas Co., 75 A.D.2d 55, 65 , 427 N.Y.S.2d 1009 [ (4th Dep’t 1980) ], noting that “[t]he degree of danger is a crucial factor in determining the specificity required in a warning” ([id]) and that to be adequate, the warnings must be commensurate with the risk involved in the ordinary use of the product (see McLaughlin v. Mine Safety Appliances Co., 11 N.Y.2d 62, 69 , 226 N.Y.S.2d 407 , 181 N.E.2d 430 [ (1962) ]).... There are several important considerations that directly affect the adequacy of a warning, including the location and eonspicuousness of the warning and the method in which the warning is communicated to the ultimate user (see Cover v. Cohen, [ 61 N.Y.2d 261 ,] 276, 473 N.Y.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“The adequacy of the warning in a products liability case based on a failure to warn is, in all but the most unusual circumstances, a question of fact to be determined at trial.”
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.