171 W. Va. 97 - Wells v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1982
Citation profile
5 federal appellate · 2 district · 63 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 77 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2017 · most notably TXO Production Corp. v. Alliance Resources Corp. (1993), 196 W. Va. 178 - Burgess v. Porterfield (1996)
5 federal appellate · 2 district · 63 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 Lake Shore Ry Co v. Prentice · 169 W. Va. 673 - Harless v. First National Bank in Fairmont · 75 Ill. App. 3d 298 - Florsheim v. Travelers Indemnity Co. · Leimgruber v. Claridge Associates, Ltd. · Mandolidis v. Elkins Industries, Inc.
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 77 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“`[i]n actions of tort, where gross fraud, malice, oppression, or wanton, willful, or reckless conduct or criminal indifference to civil obligations affecting the rights of others appear,'”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage“Where there is evidence implicating the defendant as an active participant in a tortious plan or scheme which deliberately disregards the rights of others, and the jury returns compensatory damages against some of those involved in the scheme, the failure of the jury to return an award of compensatory damages against a particular defendant will not of itself allow that defendant to escape liability for punitive damages assessed against him.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“In assessing punitive damages, the trier of fact should take into consideration all of the circumstances surrounding the particular occurrence including the nature of the wrongdoing, the extent of harm inflicted, the intent of the party committing the act, the wealth of the perpetrator, as well as any mitigating circumstances.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.