Chaix v. Viau’s Empirical Analysis
1943
Citation profile
12 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently December 1970
12 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.
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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"* * * We take cognizance of the fact that there is rarely a house which does not contain some minor defect of construction or which does not become slightly imperfect through use or from conditions of the soil. Imperfections exist in many floors, but, unless the defect be such as one would expect to cause injury while the premises are being subjected to normal use, it will be regarded as an insufficient basis for an action in damages."”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage““We are convinced that the fall was one of the many household accidents which happen each day and which are caused through the fault of no one. The testimony of Mrs. Chaix is very vague, as she is really unable to explain with certainty that the floorboard was the motivating cause of her unfortunate fall. Of course her guess is that the unevenness of the floor boards caused her damage, but we do not believe that the evidence warrants this conclusion.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Gosselin v. Stilwell
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.