Lashley v. Dawson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 2 district · 48 state decisions

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 53 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ * * The plaintiff below * * * had, it is true, in a well-meant and humane effort to prevent a serious accident and perhaps save human life, placed himself in a posi tion of grave peril which he was not obliged to assume. But he had retreated from that position and at the time of the accident was entirely off the traveled part of the road, standing in a ditch, in what he must necessarily have believed, in the haste and confusion of the moment, to be a safe place. Whatever might be said of his conduct under other circumstances, when considered in connection with the reason for his being where he was when he was struck, it cannot be characterized as negligence in law. For the law measures acts done under the spur and stress of sudden emergencies such as confronted him, when done for the purpose of averting serious or even fatal consequences to others, with more indulgence than where they are impelled by no such motive. To constitute negligence as a matter of law, the act relied upon must present some feature of reckless indifference to one’s own safety, which leaves no room for ordinary minds to differ as to its quality.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Wilmer v. Rittenhouse

2. “conduct in remaining as near the bus as he was when he was struck was so rash or so reckless as to amount to negligence as a matter of law. He knew at the time of the accident that the bus was dimly visible, if at all, to one traveling over the highway, he saw [the] car ... and believed that, if it were not stopped, an accident was inevitable. In that emergency he attempted to warn [the car’s driver] of the danger by lighting a match, and in so doing remained in a position of danger longer than was consistent with his own safety. But before the accident he had retreated to what seemed to him at the time to be a safe place, he was entirely off the traveled roadway, and his failure, under the stress of the sudden emergency which confronted him, to anticipate with unerring prescience the sequence of events which followed, is insufficient to charge him with negligence as a matter of law.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 189 Md. App. 620 - Warsham v. James Muscatello, Inc.

3. “The mere fact that the original act of the appellants in obstructing the highway would not in itself have injured the appellee is not a defense to his action against them, if it appears that it was known, or should have been known, to appellants’ driver that failure to warn approaching traffic of the obstruction might naturally and probably result in an accident which would or might injure others, lawfully in the use of the highway.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Atlantic Mutual Insurance v. Kenney