16 Wash. App. 407 - Georges v. Tudor’s Empirical Analysis
1976
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 36 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 40 later decisions — most recently April 2003 · most notably 468 So. 2d 912 - Trianon Park Condominium v. City of Hialeah (1985), 111 Wash. 2d 159 - Taylor v. Stevens County (1988)
3 federal appellate · 36 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 84 Wash. 2d 239 - King v. City of Seattle · 85 Wash. 2d 154 - LaPlante v. State · Leger v. Kelley · 86 Wash. 2d 607 - Haslund v. City of Seattle · Motyka v. City of Amsterdam
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 40 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“We have no particular quarrel at this time with the general premise on which the cases relied upon by the City stand, i.e., negligent performance of a governmental or discretionary police power duty enacted for the benefit of the public at large imposes no liability on the part of a municipality running to individual members of the public. Nevertheless, we note that running either explicitly or implicitly through some of the leading cases cited by the City is the thread of an exception to the general rule they espouse, i.e., where a relationship exists or has developed between an injured plaintiff and agents of the municipality creating a duty to perform a mandated act for the benefit of particular persons or class of persons, then tort liability may arise.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“However, these statutory provisions merely removed the defense of immunity. They did not create any new liability for a municipality. In order to recover against the city, appellants must show a breach of some duty owed them in their individual capacities and not merely a breach of some obligation owed the general public. The purpose of a building code is to protect the public. This is well stated in 7 McQuillin, Municipal Corporations (3 ed.) § 24.507, p. 523: "* * * The enactment and enforcement of building codes and ordinances constitute a governmental function. The primary purpose of such codes and ordinances is to secure to the municipality as a whole the benefits of a well-ordered municipal government, or, as sometimes expressed, to protect the health and secure the safety of occupants of buildings, and not to protect the personal or property interests of individuals." Building codes, the issuance of building permits, and building inspections are devices used by municipalities to make sure that construction within the corporate limits of the municipality meets the standards established. As such, they are designed to protect the public and are not meant to be an insurance policy by which the municipality guarantees that each building is built in compliance with the building codes and zoning codes. The charge for building permits is to offset expenses incurred by the city in promoting this public interest and is in no way an insurance premium which makes the city liable f”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“In order to recover in negligence against a municipal government, appellant must prove all the elements of his tort, including the existence of a duty owed to him, breach of that duty, causation, and damages.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Mark Weinberg
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.