Westberg v. Willde’s Empirical Analysis
1939
Citation profile
10 federal appellate · 200 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 212 later decisions — most recently June 1987 · most notably 20 Cal. 2d 457 - Blank v. Coffin (1942), Anthony v. Hobbie (1945)
10 federal appellate · 200 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 Mobile Jackson Kansas City Railroad Company v. J a Turnipseed · Western v. Henderson · Smellie v. Southern Pacific Co. · Mar Shee v. Maryland Assurance Corp. · Douglas v. Southern Pacific 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 212 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“under circumstances which afford no indication that the testimony is the product of mistake or inadvertence ... is wholly irreconcilable with the presumption ... the latter is dispelled and disappears from the case.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage“‘ ‘ Section 513 : Exceeding prima facie limit not negligence as matter of law. In any civil action proof of speed in excess of any prima facie limit declared in Section 511 hereof at a particular time and place shall not establish negligence as a matter of law but in all such actions it shall be necessary to establish as a fact that the operation of a vehicle at such excess speed constituted negligence.” (Emphasis added.)”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage““. . . ‘The presumption is that every man obeys the law, and the presumption in this case is that the plaintiffs’ son, Morris B. Westberg, was travelling at a lawful rate of speed, and on the proper side of the highway at all times. This presumption is in itself a species of evidence, and it shall prevail and control your deliberations until, and unless it is overcome by satisfactory evidence.’ ””
4 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.