Roberts v. Texas & Pacific Railway Co.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 13 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 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““(1) that the injury or damage was the result of an act or omission of the defendant, “(2) that an instrumentality by which the harm was caused or produced was in the exclusive possession of the defendant, and “(3) that the calamity was one which is ordinarily averted by the taking of customary precautions or preventive measures. ‘Where the particular thing causing the injury has been shown to be under the management of the defendant or his servants, and the accident is such as in the ordinary course of things does not happen if those who have the management use proper care, it affords reasonable evidence, in the absence of explanation by the defendant, that the accident arose from want of care.’ “The situation which thus generates a presumption or inference against the defendant is described by the words 'res ipsa loquitur,’ meaning ‘the thing speaks for itself.’ This expression, it has been said, ‘is merely a short way of saying that the circumstances attendant upon accident are themselves of such a character as to justify a jury in inferring negligence as a cause of the accident.’ ””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Montgomery Ward & Co. v. Scharrenbeck