157 W. Va. 77 - Chambers v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1973
Citation profile
23 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 23 later decisions — most recently June 2018
23 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 149 W. Va. 65 - Nesbitt v. Flaccus · 150 W. Va. 393 - Sargent v. Malcomb · Gebhardt v. Wilson Freight Forwarding Co. · 151 W. Va. 243 - Korzun v. Shahan · 127 W. Va. 409 - Dangerfield v. Akers
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.
“Although Rule 50(a) of the West Virginia Rules of Civil Procedure expressly provides that a party may introduce evidence upon the refusal of his motion for a directed verdict made at the close of his opponent's case, introduction of evidence at that point of the trial constitutes a waiver of the objection to the sufficiency of the evidence unless the motion for a directed verdict is renewed after all the evidence is in and the parties have rested.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage““It is well established that the sufficiency of the evidence is not reviewable on appeal unless a motion for a directed verdict was made in the trial court. There are sound reasons for this rule. The party who makes no motion for a directed verdict must be of the view that the evidence makes a case for the jury and should not be permitted to impute error to the court for sharing that view. The appellate court, therefore, is powerless to review the sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict if the appellant made no motion for a directed verdict. The only exception is where the insufficiency of the evidence constitutes plain error apparent on the face of the record which if not noticed would result in a manifest miscarriage of justice. Even if a motion for a new trial is made for insufficiency of the evidence, the failure to move for a directed verdict forecloses the question on appeal. A party may not gamble on the verdict and later question the sufficiency of the evidence.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage“Whenever a motion for a directed verdict made at the close of all the evidence is denied or for any reason is not granted, the court is deemed to have submitted the action to the jury subject to a later determination of the legal questions raised by the motion. Not later than 10 days after entry of judgment, a party who has moved for a directed verdict may move to have the verdict and any judgment entered thereon set aside and to have judgment entered in accordance with his motion for a directed verdict.... A motion for a new trial may be joined with this motion, or a new trial may be prayed for in the alternative. If a verdict was returned the court may allow the judgment to stand or may reopen the judgment and either order a new trial or direct the entry of judgment as if the requested verdict had been directed.”
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.