Ford v. Nathan’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 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 7 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"The doctrine recognized in Cloud v. Fallis, supra, and in many other decisions of the appellate courts of this state, does not mean that there is no area left for the appellate review of a trial court's order granting a new trial, as we pointed out in Erwin v. Chaney, 160 So.2d 139 (Fla.App. 1964), and as the Supreme Court of Florida indicated in Russo v. Clark, 147 So.2d 1 (1962). Nevertheless, the said doctrine, as recognized and applied in numberless decisions of our appellate courts, does have the effect of endowing a trial court with a very broad discretion in the matter of granting a motion for a new trial. Such a discretion is a natural and logical one since the trial judge has the advantage of sitting personally at the trial and seeing and hearing at first hand the witnesses, lawyers, court personnel, and jurors. The trial judge is thus in a much better position than an appellate court (which is confined in its consideration to the so-called `cold record') in determining whether any improper influence entered into the trial proceedings and whether the trial was a fair one to all parties involved."”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 296 So. 2d 116 - Dubois Fence & Garden Co. v. Stevens