Moore v. Berry Refining Co.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “On a motion for a new trial it must clearly appear to the trial judge that substantial justice has been done and, if in his opinion the preponderance of the evidence is against the verdict, it is his duty to grant the new trial, (citations omitted) The trial judge is more than a mere umpire; his duties extend beyond the bounds of confining the evidence to the issues and instructing the jury on the law of the case; it was his duty to hear the case along with the jury; he had the opportunity to see and know the jury; he had the duty to observe the witnesses and note the level of their intelligence and wisdom together with their independence or lack of it, their prejudice or lack of it concerning matters about which they testified, and to note their bias or prejudice, their interest or lack of interest. In short, it was his duty to keep his eyes and ears open to what was going on during the trial so that when confronted with a motion for a new trial, he could pass upon the purely legal question involved in the case, as well as determine the weight and sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict. There are many things the trial judge must take into consideration in determining the weight of conflicting evidence and passing upon the question of the preponderance thereof which make his duty in the first instance entirely different from that of an appellate tribunal as a court of review, for at the appellate level we have only the record and briefs exemplified by the cold typ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Foster v. Continental Can Corp.