Eglsaer v. Scandrett’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

10 federal appellate · 12 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 23 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Under the old concept of proximate cause, that cause must have been the direct, the complete, the responsible, the efficient cause of the injury. * * * “The words ‘in part’ have enlarged the field or scope of proximate causes — in these railroad injury cases. These words suggest that there may be a plurality of causes, each of which is sufficient to permit a jury to assess a liability. If a cause may create liability, even though it be but a partial cause, it would seem that such partial cause may be a producer of a later cause. For instance, the cause may be the first acting cause which sets in motion the second cause which was the immediate, the direct cause of the accident.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. McBride v. CSX Transportation, Inc. · Coray v. Southern Pac. Co.

2. ““The ^Federal Employers’ Liability Act] does not attempt to legislate upon the purely logical problem of determining the cause or causes of injury, but directs its mandate toward the problems of fixing liability for the injury. Logic may conclude that the injury resulted from the negligence of the employer, the employee’s own want of care, the default of a stranger to the employment, an act of God, or a pure accident, or from a combination of any or all of these factors. But after logic has thus determined the causal basis of the injury, the statute steps in to say that if, among these causes, there is negligence on the part of the employer, as that term is understood in the act, liability of the employer shall follow, irrespective of the other factors casually related in whole or in part from negligence, even if the negligence of the injured employee or some other factor was logically nearer to, or more influential in producing that injury. In the words of Mr. Justice HOLMES: ‘We must look at the situation as a practical unit, rather than inquire into a purely logical priority.’ ””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Coray v. Southern Pac. Co.