Williams v. Scott’s Empirical Analysis
1963
Citation profile
17 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 17 later decisions — most recently February 2012
17 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 Mathers v. Botsford · Brandt v. Dodd · 60 So. 2d 177 - King v. Griner · Edwards v. Donaldson · 61 So. 2d 185 - Green v. Atlantic 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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"317.131 Written reports of accidents by drivers (1) The driver of a vehicle which is in any manner involved in an accident resulting in bodily injury to or death of any person or total damage to all property to an apparent extent of fifty dollars or more shall, within five days after such accident, forward a written report of such accident to the department. * * * * * * (3) Every law enforcement officer who, in the regular course of duty, investigates a motor vehicle accident of which report must be made as required in this section, either at the time of and at the scene of the accident, or thereafter by interviewing participants or witnesses shall, within twenty-four hours after completing such investigation, forward a written report of such accident to the department." "317.171 Accident reports confidential All accident reports made by persons involved in accidents shall be without prejudice to the individual so reporting and shall be for the confidential use of the department or other state agencies having use of the records for accident prevention purposes, except that the department may disclose the identity of a person involved in an accident when such identity is not otherwise known or when such person denies his presence at such accident. No such report shall be used as evidence in any trial, civil or criminal arising out of an accident * * *". (Emphasis supplied).”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“It is true that §§ 317.12-317.15 F.S.A.[ 2 ] do not specifically require an involved pedestrian to make an accident report; but if he does in fact make a ‘report’ to an inquiring official investigator, we think his statements come within the protective cloak of § 317.17 F.S.A. The latter section, as previously noted, provides that ‘[a]ll accident reports made by persons involved in accidents shall be without prejudice to the individual so reporting .... ’ (emphasis added)[.] This language does not restrict immunity to those who are required to report, and we are unable to read such restriction into the section by reference to other sections. It is settled that the rights and responsibilities of motorists and pedestrians are reciprocal. Since both are held to the same standard of ordinary care, presumptively they are entitled to reciprocal rights and immunities as litigants. The admission of the pedestrian’s report in such a case while excluding the driver’s report would do violence to this concept as well as to the plain language of § 317.17 supra.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.