21 Wash. App. 581 - Vanwagenen v. Roy’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 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 1 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “We start with the well established rule of law, in this jurisdiction, that in the absence of an emergency or unusual condition, the following driver is prima facie negligent if he runs into the car ahead. . . . When it can be said, as a matter of law, that no emergency or unusual condition existed, and the following car collides with the forward vehicle, the following car's negligence is not based upon the necessity to find, as a fact, some affirmative act of negligence on his part. . . . Contrariwise, when the forward car's action is not reasonably anticipated, such as a sudden stop at a place where none is to be anticipated, then the trier of fact must find an affirmative act of negligence by the following driver before he can be called negligent even though he collided with the forward vehicle.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 26 Wash. App. 101 - Enslow v. Helmcke