Mason v. Banta’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

25 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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““. . . it may be concluded that as to injuries inflicted, wanton conduct or wantonness comes between negligence on the one hand and willful or malicious misconduct on the other; that it is more than negligence and less than willfulness, and to constitute wantonness the acts complained of must show not simply lack of due care, but that the actor must be deemed to have realized the imminence of injury to others from his acts and to have refrained from taking steps to prevent the injury because indifferent to whether it occurred or not. Stated in another way, if the actor has reason to believe his act may injure another, and does it being indifferent to whether or not it injures, he is guilty of wanton conduct.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Bailey v. Resner

2. ““In attempting to allege a cause of action for the recovery of punitive damages for personal injuries in a negligence action, the use of descriptive words such as willful, wanton, wrongful, reckless and malicious, standing alone, is a mere conclusion of the pleader, is not a substitute for essential allegations disclosing that course of conduct, their use does not strengthen the facts alleged, and, if a petition does allege such type of negligence, it is by reason of facts showing such negligence.” (Syl. f 1.)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Allman v. Bird

3. ““The established rule in this jurisdiction is that contributory negligence is an affirmative defense which must be pleaded by the defendant in order'to be available to him unless such negligence appears- on the face of the -petition . / ,” (p. 240.)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Clark v. Hildreth