Van Blaricom v. . Dodgson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

9 federal appellate · 92 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 108 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““And in the present case it is in effect argued that because the use of an automobile upon a highway may be dangerous, and, therefore, is a privilege subject to license by the state, the courts can apply a different rule of agency to its use than would or could be applied to the case of the other articles which have been mentioned. This kind of argument, as it appears to us, discloses the novelty and weakness of the proposition which is being urged upon us. It seems to disclose the idea, as an essential part of the argument, that because an automobile is different than a horse or boat, some advanced rules ought to be applied to its use. But the rules of principal and agent are not thus to be formulated. They are believed to be constant and not variable in response to the supposed exigencies of some particular situation. The question whether one person is the agent of another in respect of some transaction is to be determined by the fact that he represents and is acting for him rather than by the consideration that it will be inconvenient or unjust if he is not held to be his agent. If, contrary to ordinary rules, the owner of a car ought to be responsible for the carelessness of every one whom he permits to use it in the latter’s own business, that liability ought to be sought by legislation as a condition of issuing a license rather than by some new and anomalous slant applied by the courts to the principles of agency. “These views, which seem to us to be supported by princi”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Sare, Sare, Sare v. Stetz, Podorski · Hawkins v. Ermatinger

2. ““On its- face a proposition seems to be self-contradictory which asserts that a person who is wholly apd exclusively engaged in the prosecution of his own concerns is nevertheless engaged as agent in doing something for some one else. . . . The attempt is made, however, to .reconcile these apparently contradictory features of this, proposition by the assertion that the father had made it his business to furnish entertainment for the members of his family, and that therefore, when he permitted one of them to use the car, even for the latter’s personal and sole pleasure, such one was really carrying out the business of the parent, and the latter thus became a principal and liable for misconduct. This is an advanced proposition in the law of principal and agent, and the question which it presents really resolves itself into the one whether, as a matter of common sense and practical experience, we ought to say that a parent who maintains some article for family use, and occasionally permits a capable son to use it for his individual convenience, ought to be regarded as having undertaken the occupation of entertaining the latter, and to have made him his agent in this business, although the act being done is solely for the benefit of the son. That really is about all there is to the question. Not much can be profitably said by way of amplification or in debate of the query whether such a liability would rest upon reasonable principles, or whether it would present a case of such th”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Crossett v. Goelzer