Surkey v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1940
Citation profile
12 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently July 1960
12 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 Joske v. Irvine · San Antonio & Aransas Pass Railway Co. v. McMillan · Hines v. Arrant · Terry v. English · Schumacher v. Missouri Pac. Transp. Co.
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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"* * * We think the evidence corroborates rather than contradicts the testimony of Smith that he did not see Surkey until he struck him. He did not sound his horn, he did not apply his brakes, he made no effort to swerve his car in an effort to avoid striking Surekey. It would be contrary to human nature not to make some effort to prevent striking a person after discovering his perilous position. Furthermore, it is shown that this accident happened very suddenly. If Smith was traveling as slow as twenty miles per hour he was traveling thirty feet per second, and it would thus appear that from the time Smith passed the Sharp car until he struck Surkey was less than two seconds, * * *". (Emphasis added.)”
1 later decision 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.