Lindenberg v. Needles’s Empirical Analysis
1953
Citation profile
50 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 50 later decisions — most recently January 2017 · most notably West v. Belle Isle Cab Co. (2001), Sanders v. Williams (1996)
50 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 Brown v. Bendix Radio Division of Bendix Aviation Corp. · Crunkilton v. Hook · Goldman v. Johnson Motor Lines, Inc. · Ness v. Males · Beck v. Baltimore Transit 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 50 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““* * * ii constantly reiterated in the books that contributory negligence cannot be found as a matter of law, unless the evidence permits of but one interpretation which shows some prominent and decisive act in regard to which there is no room for ordinary minds to differ. Beck v. Baltimore Transit Co., 190 Md. 506 , 58 A. 2d 909 ; Crunkilton v. Hook, 185 Md. 1 , 42 A. 2d 517 ; Brown v. Bendix Aviation Corp., 187 Md. 613 , 51 A. 2d 292 . * * * “In the absence of the prominent and decisive act which constitutes contributory negligence as a matter of law, the question as to such negligence is for the jury. The burden of proving contributory negligence is on the defendant. Klein v. Dougherty [ 200 Md. 22 , 87 A. 2d 821 ] and Goldman v. Johnson Motor Lines, [ 192 Md. 24 , 63 A. 2d 622 ] * * *.””
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Contributory negligence, like primary negligence, is relative, and not absolute, and must be determined by the circumstances of each case. * * *. The conduct of an actor during a sequence of events which culminate in injury is to be tested by comparison with what an ordinarily prudent man would have done or not done under like ■ circumstances. The relative significance of each of the events and of the conduct of the actor, as they occur, is most appropriately weighed by a jury, who, as ordinary men, must determine what was reasonably to be expected.””
2 later decisions 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.