Henderson v. Deckert’s Empirical Analysis
1945
Citation profile
32 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 32 later decisions — most recently February 1978 · most notably Brent v. McDonald (1956), Epperson v. Bennett (1946)
32 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 Sponable v. Thomas · Sams v. Commercial Standard Insurance · State v. Keehn · Anderson v. Thompson · Carrington v. British American Oil Producing 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 32 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““There is, of course, no uniformity in our decisions on the proposition of when damages allowed in a personal injury action are excessive for the simple reason determination of that question necessarily depends upon the facts and circumstances of each particular case as it is presented for review. Recognized in every case, however, irrespective of its results, is the now well-established doctrine that in order for a judgment to be set aside as excessive it must appear that it is so large as to shock the conscience of the court. (citing cases.) Many other cases to the same effect are to be found but they would only further emphasize the rule and time and space will not permit their citation. “That the verdict in this case was liberal is beyond dispute. However, under the rule when we give full credence to all the testimony adduced by the appellee, heretofore set forth in detail, which we are required to do because the jury gave it such credence, we cannot say the verdict was sufficiently excessive, if actually excessive, as to evidence passion and prejudice on the part of the jury or to require the granting of a new trial. Obviously, under such circumstances, since the trial court in the exercise of its discretion saw fit to materially reduce the verdict we are not disposed to reverse the judgment on the ground it was excessive.” (pp. 395, 396.)”
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.