129 W. Va. 591 - Toler v. Cassinelli’s Empirical Analysis
1946
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 27 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 34 later decisions — most recently March 1993 · most notably Basista v. Weir (1965), 162 W. Va. 116 - Harless v. First National Bank in Fairmont (1978)
3 federal appellate · 27 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 127 W. Va. 409 - Dangerfield v. Akers · Pennington v. Gillaspie · 82 W. Va. 270 - Pendleton v. Norfolk & Western Railway Co. · 81 W. Va. 500 - Hess v. Marinari · Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. v. Carless
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 34 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“. “Mental suffering alone, and unaccompanied by other injury, cannot sustain an action for damages, or be considered as an element of damages. Anxiety of mind and mental torture are too refined and vague in their nature to be the subject of pecuniary compensation in damages, except where, in cases of personal injury, they are so inseparably connected with physical pain they cannot be "distinguished from it, and are therefore considered a part of it.” Davis v. Telegraph Co., 46 W.Va. .48, 53, 32 S.E. 1026 . The Davis case states the general rule, subject to certain statutory exceptions not here pertinent. In the instant case the defendant by unreasonable and wilful conduct aggravated plaintiff’s preexisting illness, and caused her to suffer physical discomfort. The humiliation and mental pain may be considered as an element of damages. Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. v. Carless, 127 Va. 5 , 102 S.E. 569 . See 1 Sedgwick on Damages, Ninth Ed., Sections 42-43. Where unreasonable and wilful action by defendant inflicts indignity, humiliation and insult on plaintiff, resulting in mental pain and suffering, they are a just basis for compensatory damages. .”
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.