Taylor v. Ray’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 16 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 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The first objection to the proposed rule is that it permits the court to decide, instead of the jury, whether the average driver under ordinary circumstances, using ordinary care, so conducts himself as to satisfy the proposed rule. This in itself is a debatable question of fact. Does that hypothetical person, by whom we measure ordinary care, drive his car in such manner as to harmonize merely with moving traffic, which is what may normally be expected upon the highway, or does he so drive it as to be able to stop instantly upon meeting unexpected and unwarned obstructions? The question is not what should the driver do, but what does the driver do, the average driver using ordinary care? That is the yardstick, the criterion, by which we determine whether the driver in the particular case was negligent, and until we determine the first we cannot determine the second. It is obvious that such decision is purely one of fact and not of law.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Kraft Foods Co. v. Chadwell

2. ““Nor should we overlook the fact that just what is a ‘clear distance ahead’ must in practice vary with almost every case, and that this is a question of fact. The length of headlight beams has, of course, nothing to do with it in day driving and is not all-controlling in night driving, when it is constantly shifting in accord with the turns in the road and the suddenness thereof, or ascent or descent of the roadway, the presence of other traffic, or the fact of blinding headlights from the opposite direction, as well as a score of other factors. The clear distance of visibility may change suddenly from a long distance to virtually none at all, and vice versa.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Holland v. State