Head v. Hargrave’s Empirical Analysis
105 U.S. 45 · 1881
Citation profile
106 federal appellate · 11 district · 176 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 350 later decisions (11 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2017 · most notably Sartor v. Arkansas Natural Gas Corp. (1944), The Conqueror (1897)
106 federal appellate · 11 district · 176 state decisions — followed in 35 states
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 Kerr v. Clampitt · Anthony v. Stinson
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 350 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The evidence of experts as to the value of professional services does not differ, in principle, from such evidence as to the value of labor in other departments of business, or as to the value of property. So far from laying aside their own general knowledge and ideas, the jury should have applied that knowledge and those ideas to the matters of fact in evidence in determining the weight to be given to the opinions expressed; and it was only in that way that they could arrive at a just conclusion. While they cannot act in any ease upon particular facts material to its disposition resting in their private knowledge, but should he governed by the evidence adduced, they may, and to act intelligently they must, judge of the weight and force of that evidence by their own general knowledge of the subject of inquiry * * * And, while great weight should always be given to the opinions of those famihar with the subject, they are not to be blindly received, but are to be intelligently examined by the jury in the light of their own general knowledge; they should control only as they are found to be reasonable.””
17 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““We have seen the opinions of attorneys testifying to the value of lawyers’ services are not conclusive on the jury, who may act independently or in opposition to them, applying to the case their own experience and knowledge of the character of the services. The same is true of the opinions of all experts and nonexperts as to value.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage““Juries would be very little fit for the high and responsible office to which they are called, especially to make an appraisement, which depends on knowledge and experience, if they might not avail themselves of those powers of their minds when they are most necessary to the performance of their duties.””
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.