Columbia Co v. Hawthorne’s Empirical Analysis
144 U.S. 202 · 1892
Citation profile
179 federal appellate · 23 district · 115 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 360 later decisions (6 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2009 · most notably Donnelly v. United States (1913), Campbell v. City of Haverhill (1895)
179 federal appellate · 23 district · 115 state decisions — followed in 34 states
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 Grand Trunk Railway Co. v. Cummings · Accident Insurance v. Crandal · Northern Pac Co v. Mares · Morse v. Minneapolis & St. Louis Railway 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 360 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Upon this question there has been some difference of opinion in the courts of the several States. But it is now settled, upon much consideration, by the decisions of the highest court of most of the States in which the question has arisen, that the evidence is incompetent, because the taking of such precautions against the future is not to be construed as an admission of responsibility for the past, has no legitimate tendency to prove that the defendant had been negligent before the accident happened, and is calculated to distract the minds of the jury from the real issue, and to create a prejudice against the defendant. Morse v. Minneapolis & St. Louis Railway, 30 Minn. 465 [ 16 N.W. 358 ]; Corcoran v. Peekskill, 108 N.Y. 151 [ 15 N.E. 309 ]; Nalley v. Hartford Carpet Co., 51 Conn. 524 [ 50 Am. Rep. 47 ]; Ely v. St. Louis, etc., Railway, 77 Mo. 34 ; Terre Haute & Indianapolis R. R. v. Clem, 123 Ind. 15 [ 23 N.E. 965 , 7 L.R.A. 588 , 18 Am.St.Rep. 303 ]; Hodges v. Percival, 132 Ill. 53 [ 23 N.E. 423 ]; Lombar v. East Tawas, 86 Mich. 14 [ 48 N.W. 947 ] ; Shinners v. Proprietors of Locks & Canals, 154 Mass. 168 [ 28 N.E. 10 , 12 L.R.A. 554 , 26 Am.St.Rep. 226 ].””
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““[Ejvidence of this kind ought not to be admitted under any circumstances ... upon the broader ground that such acts afford no legitimate basis for construing such an act as an admission of previous neglect of duty. A person may have exercised all the care which the law required, and yet, in the light of his new experience, after an unexpected accident has occurred, and as a measure of extreme caution, he may adopt additional safeguards. The more careful a person is, the more regard he has for the lives of others, the more likely he would be to do so; and it would seem unjust that he could not do so without being liable to have such acts construed as an admission of prior negligence. We think such a rule puts an unfair interpretation upon human conduct, and virtually holds out an inducement for continued negligence.””
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“"It has repeatedly been decided that a request for a ruling that upon the evidence introduced the plaintiff is not entitled to recover cannot be made by the defendant, as a matter of right, unless at the close of the whole evidence; and that if the defendant, at the close of the plaintiff's evidence, and without resting his own case, requests and is refused such a ruling, the refusal cannot be assigned for error."”
4 later decisions 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.