Bruton v. . Light Co.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 81 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 93 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “A judgment rendered in an action estops the parties and their privies as to all issuable matters contained in the pleadings, including all material and relevant matters within the scope of the pleadings, which the parties, in the exercise of reasonable diligence, could and should have brought forward. [Citing cases.] The whole tendency of our decisions is to require a plaintiff to try his whole cause of action and his whole case at one time. He can neither split up his claim nor divide the grounds of recovery.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 93 N.C. App. 168 - Crump v. Board of Education · Hayes v. Ricard

2. ““An actionable injury arises when the consequence of the detention of water by a dam is the flooding of the lands of owners either upstream or downstream. However, the owner of a dam may permit water to flow from a dam if the waters coming to the dam are neither accelerated in speed or increased in quantity, so long as ordinary care is exercised in the discharging of the water ponded behind the dam. Nothing appears to be more settled than that the owner of a dam is not bound to anticipate unprecedented storms or rainfalls, and is not liable for damages resulting from extraordinary storms and floods. But where the negligence of the defendant in the operation of its plant during unprecedented and unforeseeable storm or rainfall is a contributing factor in producing injury — that is when the injury resulted from a combination of the defendant’s negligence acting in concert with some natural force such as an unprecedented storm the defendant is not relieved from liability, since an act of God which exculpates the owner of a dam must be such an act as constitutes the sole cause of the injury. “Likewise, a defendant power company is required to exercise ordinary care in anticipating flood conditions from an ordinary freshet such as might be reasonably expected or foreseen and to use reasonable care in the manipulation thereof and in guarding against any undue acceleration or retardation of the flood water. It may be held accountable for any damages for its failure to exercise such ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 290 F. Supp. 8 - Key Sales Co. v. SOUTH CAROLINA ELECTRIC AND GAS COMPANY