Whitaker v. Coleman’s Empirical Analysis
115 F.2d 305 · 1940
Citation profile
135 federal appellate · 16 district · 49 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 249 later decisions (3 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2021 · most notably Sartor v. Arkansas Natural Gas Corp. (1944), United Oil Co. v. Urban Redevelopment Commission (1969)
135 federal appellate · 16 district · 49 state decisions — followed in 16 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 Butler v. Eaton · American Casualty Co. of Reading v. Windham · Ransom v. City of Pierre · Standard Acc. Ins. v. Rivet · Columbia Casualty Co. v. Lyle
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 249 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Summary judgment procedure is not a catch penny contrivance to take unwary litigants into its toils and deprive them of a trial, it is a liberal measure, liberally designed for arriving at the truth. Its purpose is not to cut litigants off from their right of trial by jury if they really have evidence which they will offer on a trial, it is to carefully test this out, in advance of trial by inquiring and determining whether such evidence exists.”
24 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“'too incredible to be accepted by reasonable minds.'”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““It is quite clear that technical rulings have no place in this [summary judgment] procedure and particularly that exclusionary rules will not be applied to strike, on grounds of formal defects in the proffer, evidence proffered on tendered issues. While, therefore, it does not appear from the record that the transcript of Jones’ testimony was in any manner defective or why the offer was refused, this is, we think immaterial. For the offer of the transcript certainly apprised the judge that there was relevant and important evidence which "defendant appellant could and would tender on trial and notwithstanding this, he was refused a continuance to get the evidence and the matter was pressed at once and erroneously, to summary judgment.””
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.