116 Ga. App. 848 - Willis v. Hill’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 district · 33 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 41 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““It must be remembered that there is more than one way to impose liability upon A for B’s conduct. Possibilities for doing so, recognized in varying degrees in various jurisdictions, are agency, negligent entrustment of a chattel to an incompetent, conspiracy, the family-purpose doctrine, joint enterprise, and ownership liability statutes. Assuming that all these theories for attaching liability to A for B’s wrongdoing were recognized in this jurisdiction and that all six grounds were properly pleaded in one case for one injury, would the plaintiff be entitled as ‘the master of his own lawsuit,’ to introduce evidence to prove a liability link or ‘breach of duty’ under each and every ground, notwithstanding the fact that A does not contest his liability for B’s conduct? Under a contrary holding, if A has breached six ‘duties’ to the plaintiff, the plaintiff may take all the trial time necessary, with corresponding space in the record, to prove liability under all six theories, regardless of the fact that A admits directly the ultimate thing sought so laboriously to be established in the first instance — that he is legally responsible in any event for B’s conduct. The fallacy of the situation is not relieved by declaring that A, the employer-entrustor in this case, has breached two, or six, or a hundred ‘duties’ to the plaintiff. In cases where A is sought to be held for an injury caused by B, the employee-driver in this case, the ‘breach of duty’ by A is nothing more than a th”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Wise v. Fiberglass Systems, Inc. · Rothwell v. Werner Enterprises, Inc.

2. ““It was error for the trial court to admit testimony for plaintiff as to other accidents in which Davis allegedly was involved. This could have been admissible to obviate the necessity of proving agency, under the rule that where one entrusts a vehicle to one known to be a reckless driver, the former is responsible for the acts of the driver, although the driver was not about the owner’s business. But in this case appellants’ answer admitted that Davis was within the scope of his employment at the time and place in question, and Davis so testified.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Cole v. Alton

3. ““When the driver’s employer comes in and admits ... that he is liable for the driver’s acts under the doctrine of respondeat superior if the driver has been negligent, the plaintiff may recover all damages to which he is legally entitled by establishing the driver’s negligence.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Cole v. Alton