Bowman v. Williams’s Empirical Analysis
1933
Citation profile
16 district · 78 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 99 later decisions — most recently February 2013 · most notably 59 Cal. 2d 295 - Amaya v. Home Ice, Fuel & Supply Co. (1963), Faya v. Almaraz (1993)
16 district · 78 state decisions — followed in 11 states
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 Green v. T. A. Shoemaker & Co. · Gordon v. Opalecky · Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Roch · Comstock v. Wilson · Patapsco Loan Co. v. Hobbs
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 99 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The fright of the plaintiff and his alarm for the safety of his two young sons occasioned by this accident were, however, such a shock to his nervous system that he fell to the floor of the dining room immediately after the impact of the truck with the fabric of the house, and was carried into the kitchen in a weak and hysterical condition. The doctor was sent for, and the plaintiff remained in bed for two weeks under regular medical treatment.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“In fright a man’s whole being reacts. The shock to his nervous system is reflected in instinctive excitement and intensive action of the muscles and organs of the body, and so it is clear that the mental state has a corresponding physical accompaniment, although there has been no impact suffered. “The fear’s as bad as falling.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“When fear exists, the nervous and physical reactions, although probably differing in degree, are fundamentally identical, whether the fear is purely subjective, as when it is for the victim's own safety, or is objective, as when the fear is for the victim's wife, child, relative, friend, or even a stranger.”
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.