Butler v. Darden’s Empirical Analysis
1949
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 24 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 27 later decisions — most recently December 1974 · most notably Smithey v. Sinclair Refining Co. (1961), Steele v. Crocker (1951)
3 federal appellate · 24 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 Schools v. Walker · White v. Southern Railway Co. · Atlantic Coast Line Railroad v. Clements · Norfolk & Western Railway Co. v. Wellons' Administrator · Hancock v. Norfolk & Western Railway Co.
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.
“While the negligence of the driver is not to be imputed to the passenger, yet the passenger must exercise reasonable care for his own safety. He must look and listen and warn his driver if he sees a train approaching. The railroad track is to him, as to others, a signal of danger. Since he knew the crossing and its use and the condition of its approaches, more was required of him than of a stranger to the locality. He should have looked and listened where it would have been effective and this duty was commensurate with the character of the crossing as he knew it to be. Hancock v. Norfolk, etc., R. Co., 149 Va. 829 , 141 S.E. 849 ; Norfolk etc., R. Co. v. Wellons, 155 Va. 218 , 154 S.E. 575 ; Virginian R. Co. v. Rodgers, 170 Va. 581 , 197 S.E. 476 ; Southern R. Co. v. Whetzel, 159 Va. 796 , 167 S.E. 427 ; Virginian R. Co. v. Bacon, 156 Va. 337 , 157 S.E. 789 .”
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.