Soderstrom v. Patten’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

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

1. ““With some minor differences in the facts the authorities cited, and especially the Maryland case [Hall v. Poole] are sufficiently in point to control this case if we were obliged or disposed to follow them. They seem to hold that except in the mere matter of actually running the elevator with freight and passengers in it up and down the shaft from story to story, the elevator boy could be guilty of no negligence in the control or handling of it which could.be imputed to his employer. We do not agree with the doctrine or reasoning of these cases. The Maryland case leans heavily on the New York Supreme Court case [Jossaers v. Walher~] and concerning this latter we agree with Thompson in his commentaries on the Law of Negligence, 2d edition, Vol. 1, Sec. 528, that it is ‘a decision seemingly untenable.’ The elevator man was not an automaton, but a reasoning and intelligent being, put in control of the piece of machinery in question, and was therefore impliedly authorized to regulate its motions under extraordinary circumstances and in emergencies, as well as in the ordinary routine. There were not likely to be many of these extraordinary circumstances, it is true, but the rightful presence of a repairer at the bottom of the shaft, whose work would take a few minutes, was such a circumstance. The negligence of the elevator man did not depend on the promise nor consist in the breaking of it. His negligence was in so running the elevator that it injured a person not a trespasser w”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Beatty v. Metropolitan Building Co.