128 Wash. 2d 840 - Vodopest v. MacGregor’s Empirical Analysis
1996
Citation profile
21 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 21 later decisions — most recently June 2019
21 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 60 Cal. 2d 92 - Tunkl v. Regents of University of California · 119 Wash. 2d 484 - Scott v. Pacific West Mountain Resort · 115 Wash. 2d 217 - American Nursery Products, Inc. v. Indian Wells Orchards · 79 Wash. 2d 443 - McCutcheon v. United Homes Corp. · 110 Wash. 2d 845 - Wagenblast v. Odessa School District No. 105-157-166J
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) the transaction concerns a business of a type generally thought suitable for public regulation; (2) the party seeking exculpation is engaged in performing a service of great importance to the public, which is often a matter of practical necessity for some members of the public; (3) the party holds himself out as willing to perform this service for any member of the public who seeks it, or at least for any member coming within certain established standards; (4) as a result of the essential nature of the service, in the economic setting of the transaction, the party invoking exculpation possesses a decisive advantage of bargaining strength against any member of the public who seeks his services; (5) in exercising a superior bargaining power, the party confronts the public with a standardized adhesion contract of exculpation and makes no provision whereby a purchaser may pay additional reasonable fees and obtain protection against negligence; (6) as a result of the transaction, the person or property of the purchaser is placed under the control of the seller, subject to the risk of carelessness by the seller or his agents.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“releases from liability for negligence are not allowed as a part of any approved study, as the federal government does not allow exculpatory language in human subject experimentation.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“a survey of cases assessing exculpatory clauses reveals that the common determinative factor for Washington courts has been the services' or activities' importance to the public.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.