Smith v. Wittman’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

10 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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““At the plaintiffs’ request the court instructed the jury that a child under four is incapable of negligence or contributory negligence. The appellants complain of an instruction, given for the defendant, by which the jury were told that a motorist has the right to assume that a pedestrian will obey traffic laws and may proceed upon that assumption until he knows or should know that the pedestrian will not do so. It is argued that the effect of this instruction was to require the child to obey the traffic laws. We do not think so at all. The court had already excluded the possibility of negligence on the part of the child; the instruction now in question dealt with the situation from Wittman’s point of view and merely stated an assumption that a motorist may rely upon in the operation of his car. Kendrick v. Rankin, 219 Ark. 736 , 244 S.W.2d 495 .””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Sams v. Pacific Indemnity Co.