Stocking v. Johnson Flying Service’s Empirical Analysis
1963
Citation profile
2 district · 28 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 32 later decisions — most recently May 1984 · most notably Montana Deaconess Hospital v. Gratton (1976), Flansberg v. Montana Power Company (1969)
2 district · 28 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 Maki v. Murray Hospital · Escallier v. Great Northern Ry. Co. · Mellon v. Kelly · Birsch v. Citizens' Electric Co. · Burns v. Fisher
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 32 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““In the commission of certain injuries it is impossible for a party to prove facts showing negligence, but by common knowledge and experience it is clear that the injury would not have occurred but for the responsible party’s negligence. When this situation arises, courts generally apply the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur, or ‘the thing speaks for itself.’ Maki v. Murray Hospital, 91 Mont. 251, 263 , 7 P.2d 228 . “Res ipsa loquitur is defined as: ‘That when an instrumentality which causes injury, without any fault of the injured person, is under the exclusive control of the defendant at the time of the injury, and the injury is such as in the ordinary course of things does not occur if the one having such control uses proper care, then the law infers negligence on the part of the one in control as the cause of the injury.’ [Emphasis supplied.] Whitney v. Northwest Greyhound, 125 Mont. 528, 533 , 242 P.2d 257 ; Davis v. Trobough, 139 Mont. 322, 326 , 363 P.2d 727 . “ ‘This doctrine is not an exception to the rule that the burden is on the plaintiff to prove actionable negligence, nor does it permit a recovery on mere proof of the injury; it merely “has the force of a disputable presumption of law and supplies the place of proof necessarily wanting” when the injured party cannot disclose the cause of his injury, but it is apparent prima facie that the accident would not ordinarily have happened had the defendant exercised ordinary care. [Cases cited.] “ ‘Further, this doctrine i”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.