Kowcun v. Bybee’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 district · 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 27 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The Workmen’s Compensation Law has passed the experimental stage. It is as essential to industry as it is to labor. It comprises one of the most important branches of law. Upon its effectiveness depends the potential welfare of a large number of employees and their families. It places upon industry as an expense of the business the pecuniary loss, measured by the compenation provided in the statute, attendant upon all accidents to employees within the hazards of the industry. [Emphasis added.] It extends the employer’s liability to all accidental personal injuries ‘arising out of and in the course of the employment/ the expense of which is added to the cost of production. The employer surrenders his right of defense on the ground of contributory negligence and the common-law doctrines of the assumption of risk and fellow servants. The rules of evidence are relaxed. The employee surrenders his right to a trial by jury and agrees to accept an arbitrary amount fixed by statute in lieu of full compensation for the injuries sustained. He gains- a wider security. The issue of negligence or non-negligence of the employer and the fellow servants is eliminated. Long, costly and delayed litigation is avoided. A smaller but speedier recovery is guaranteed. This theory of compensation for accidental injuries has been accepted by practically all of the States as well as the United States and its possessions. The application of particular phases of the law in the different States depends ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Brown v. Arrington Const. Co.

2. ““It seems evident that by adding the phrase, ‘not in the same employ’ after the term, ‘a third person,’ our legislature sought to avoid the effect of the Pennsylvania and the Wisconsin decisions. It will be recalled, however, that the New York statute says that the injured workman’s right to compensation shall be his ‘exclusive remedy’ if he is injured ‘by the negligence or wrong of another in the same employ.’ Our act does not employ the term ‘exclusive remedy.’ We think, however, that our practice has constantly deemed the remedy afforded by our act as the exclusive remedy available to the injured workman except in the instances where the act affords an alternative remedy.” Kowcun v. Bybee, 182 Or. 271 , 186 P.2d 790 , at page 799. “An injured workman cannot have both an award of compensation and an action for damages against a purport ed tort-feasor except in the specific instances mentioned in the act. In all cases, except the rare exceptions set forth in the act, compensation, and that alone, is the measure of recovery. Compensation, unless an injured workman can bring himself within an exception, is the exclusive remedy.” Kowcun v. Bybee, 182 Or. 271 , 186 ,P.2d 790, at page 801.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Brown v. Arrington Const. Co.

3. ““There are several scores of decisions rendered by the courts of various jurisdictions upon the question of whether or not a workman, who negligently injures a fellow workman, is rendered immune from liability by the Workmen’s Compensation Law which his employer had embraced. The difference in the results is not due to a difference in judicial interpretation of like statutes, but to the fact that the provisions of the statutes bearing upon this issue vary * ⅝ *. “We now revert to the controlling words of our own act which are, ‘a third person not in the same employ.’ We saw from the Pennsylvania and Wisconsin decisions that an employee is normally deemed a third person when sued by a coemployee ⅜ * ⅜. v ⅝* ⅞* ⅜ “It seems evident that by adding the phrase, ‘not in the same employ,’ after the term, ‘a third person,’ our legislature sought to avoid the effect of the Pennsylvania and Wisconsin decisions”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Ransom v. Haner