168 W. Va. 391 - Bell v. West’s Empirical Analysis
1981
Citation profile
23 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 23 later decisions — most recently August 2011
23 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 Piper v. Chris-Craft Industries, Inc. · 160 W. Va. 530 - Chapman v. Kane Transfer Co., Inc. · Pearson v. Skydell · Britain v. Rice · King v. Smythe
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 23 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[w]here one purchases and maintains an automobile for the comfort, convenience, pleasure, entertainment and recreation of his family, any member thereof operating the automobile will be regarded as an agent or servant of the owner, and such owner will be held liable in damages for injuries sustained by a third person by reason of the negligent operation of the vehicle by such agent or servant. The family member is carrying out the pur pose for which the automobile was provided. Were not liability incurred by the owner of the automobile in such circumstances, an innocent victim of the negligence of a financially irresponsible driver would be entirely without recourse. This could not be condoned.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent“‘A movant is entitled to summary judgment where the facts established show a right to judgment with such clarity as to leave no room for controversy and show affirmatively that the adverse party cannot prevail under any circumstances.’ Syl. Pt. 1, George v. Blosser, 157 W.Va. 811 , 204 S.E.2d 567 (1974), quoting, Hanks v. Beckley Newspapers Corp., 153 W.Va. 834 , [837,] 172 S.E.2d 816 [, 818] (1970).”
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.