Hoffman v. Loud’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

21 state decisions

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 21 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “‘‘In civil cases a preponderance of evidence is all that is required, and by a ‘preponderance of evidence’ is meant such evidence as, when weighed with that opposed to it, has more convincing force, and from which it results that the greater probability is in favor of the party upon whom the burden rests. Proof to a demonstration is not required, and it is usually unfortunate to employ qualifying words when defining' the necessity for a preponderance of evidence, when it is possible that the terms employed may lead the jury to draw the inference that something more than a mere preponderance is required. See Watkins v. Wallace, 19 Mich. 77 ; Ferris v. McQueen, 94 Mich. 367 ; Gumberg v. Treusch, 103 Mich. 543 . There is respectable authority for holding that the use of the term ‘clear preponderance’ is in itself sufficient to mislead the jury, and that it is error to employ such term in an instruction. McDeed v. McDeed, 67 Ill. 546 ; Bitter v. Saathoff, 98 Ill. 266 ; Mitchell v. Hindman, 150 Ill. 538 ; Marx v. Kilpatrick, 25 Neb. 118 . Whether we would be prepared to adopt this view of all cases, without regard to other portions of the charge it is not now important to determine.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Cline v. Studebaker Corp. · Thomas v. Miller