Kirk v. Hanes Corporation of North Carolina’s Empirical Analysis
1994
Citation profile
1 district · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 31 later decisions — most recently February 2021 · most notably Hernandez Ex Rel. Emeterio v. Tokai Corp. (1999), 311 F. Supp. 2d 653 - Kammeyer v. City of Sharonville (2003)
1 district · 3 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 Erie Co v. Tompkins · West v. American Telephone & Telegraph Co. · Bernhardt v. Polygraphic Co. of America, Inc. · Brooks v. American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. · Prentis v. Yale Manufacturing 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 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“absent a strong showing that the state's highest court would decide the issue differently.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Obvious risks presented by one aspect of a complex machine, such as the forklift in Owens , may or may not be unreasonable when considered in light of feasible alternatives, the utility of the product and the impact of proposed alternatives on its overall safety. This intricate balancing is, in the ordinary case, best left to the jury. Those cases, as the above-quoted language [in Owens ] makes clear, stand in stark contrast to cases such as Fisher in which the product is a simple tool that presents a single, obvious risk inherent in the product’s utility. Therefore, we read Owens os refusing to extend Fisher to design defect cases involving complex machines----”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“We are not convinced that this language conflicts with our understanding that Fisher remains a viable theory of defense in design eases involving simple tools. The Glittenberg [Cjourt’s citation to Owens as having limited the open and obvious danger rule, we believe, indicates that the limitation extends only to complex tools such as the forklift in Owens . Specifically, the second sentence in the quoted passage seems to us to support, rather than weaken, our conclusion that Fisher remains viable in design defect cases involving simple tools.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.