21 Wash. 2d 449 - Thompson v. Porter’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 district · 3 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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Going no further back into the decisions than to Mosso v. [E. H.] Stanton Co., 75 Wash. 220 , 134 Pac. 941 , L.R.A.1916A, 943, we find that case endeavored to clarify the last clear chance rule and define two separate conditions under which it was applicable, and the rule is announced as (1) that, where the defendant actually saw the peril of a traveler on the highway, and should have appreciated the danger and failed to exercise reasonable care to avoid injury, such failure made the defendant liable, although the plaintiff’s negligence may have continued up to the instant of the injury, but (2) that, where the defendant did not actually see the peril of the plaintiff, but by keeping a reasonably careful lookout commensurate with the dangerous character of the agency and the locality should have seen the peril and appreciated it in time, by the exercise of reasonable care, to have avoided the injury, and failure to escape the injury results from failure to keep that lookout and exercise that care, the defendant was liable only when the plaintiff’s negligence had terminated or culminated in a situation of peril from which the plaintiff could not, by the exercise of reasonable care, extricate himself. “Thus we have two different situations to which the last clear chance rule applies. In the one the plaintiff’s negligence may continue up to the time of the injury, if the defendant actually sees the peril; in the second the plaintiff’s negligence must have terminated, if the def”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Benson v. United States · 1 Wash. App. 202 - Lee v. COTTEN BROTHERS CO.

2. ““Appellant further contends that the case should have been sent to the jury under the second division of the rule. Under that division, the defendant may be held liable under the doctrine of last clear chance, notwithstanding the negligence of the injured person and even if he did not see him, but should have seen his peril and appreciated it in time to have, by reasonable care, avoided the injury. But, under those circumstances, the defendant can only be held liable: “ ‘ * * * when the plaintiff’s negligence had terminated or culminated in a situation of peril from which the plaintiff could not, by the exercise of reasonable care, extricate himself.’ “In summing up the two situations to which the last clear chance rule applies, the court said, in the Leftridge case, and this is the paragraph of the opinion so frequently quoted in our own opinions: “ ‘Thus we have two different situations to which the last clear chance rule applies. In the one the plaintiff’s negligence may continue up to the time of the injury, if the defendant actually sees the peril; in the second the plaintiff’s negligence must have terminated, if the defendant did not actually see the peril, but by the exercise of reasonable care should have seen it.’ ””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Benson v. United States