Patterson v. Tomlinson’s Empirical Analysis
1938
Citation profile
7 federal appellate · 13 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 21 later decisions — most recently August 1986
7 federal appellate · 13 state decisions
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 Silver v. Silver · Naudzius v. Lahr · Napier v. Mooneyham · Pfeiffer v. Green · Glassman v. Feldman
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.
““Since under the undisputed facts, viewed in light of the guest statute, Paul, the host driver of the car, is not liable to his nonpaying guest for damages for injuries sustained by her in the collision, he is not a joint tort-feasor, and is therefore not liable for contribution to appellant, who under the undisputed facts is alone liable to plaintiff for her injuries and damages sustained in the collision. To subject Paul to liability through contribution for his ordinary negligence would by indirection compel him to pay his guest for his ordinary negligence, in contravention of the provisions of the guest statute, which exclude recovery of the host for ordinary negligence. “Nor do we sustain the contention of appellant that the guest statute was intended to apply only as between the host and the guest, and not as between the parties to an automobile collision in which the guest is injured. In attempting to sustain this contention, appellant cites Art. 2212, R.S.1925, which provides that joint tort-feasors equally guilty of negligence are entitled to contribution, one from the other; and that joint tort-feasors unequally guilty of negligence are not entitled to contribution, but that the one least negligent may recover of the one most negligent full contribution. The answer to this contention is our holding that a host driver is not liable to his guest for ordinary negligence, and is therefore not a joint tort-feasor. * * * ””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.