Bailey v. Stewart’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““When the Trial Court submitted the said part 3 of Interrogatory No. 4 to the jury, the Court had typewritten into the interrogatory: ‘Less amount heretofore paid plaintiff, John L. Stewart, by third-party defendants $9,000.00.’ So the jury wrote ‘$24,000.00’ on the first line, and ‘$15,000.00’ on the third line. Thus, the jury clearly indicated that Stewart was damaged a total of $24,000.00 and had received $9,000.00 from the third-party defendants and would still be entitled to receive a balance of $15,000.00 except for the settlement with the third-party defendants. The Trial Court, in framing this interrogatory, was taking every precaution to avoid the uncertainty which caused the reversal on the first appeal. But when the Trial Court entered judgment on the interrogatories, the Court properly entered judgment against Bailey for only $12,000.00. This was true because: (a) Stewart was damaged a total of $24,000.00; and (b) Stewart’s release to Cossey had provided that its effect should be to reduce the damages recoverable against any other person to the extent of Cossey’s pro rata share of the responsibility, thereby relieving Cossey of any liability for contribution in accordance with Ark.Stat.Ann. § 34-1005 (Repl.1962), which was actually cited in the release. Hence when Cos-sey was found to have been 50% negligent the effect of the release was to reduce Stewart’s recoverable damages against Bailey by 50% of the total, leaving a liability of only $12,000.00. The interrog”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Sainato v. Swerdlow