Bauer v. Kummer Ex Rel. Kummer’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

30 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 30 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Whether a motion to change a verdict, or in the alternative to vacate it and grant a new trial, calls merely for relief from clerical error in reducing the verdict to writing, or constitutes an attempt to impeach the verdict itself is primarily a question of fact.”

   5 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Zimmerman Ex Rel. Zimmerman v. Witte Transportation Co. · Bianchi v. Nordby

2. “"It would greatly tend to unsettle verdicts if a juror be permitted to say, after it is too late to be remedied, that he did not understand the charge of the court. To do so would result in continual embarrassment and interminable controversy after trials, although a verdict had been duly and solemnly announced. It would subject jurors to constant annoyance by being called upon to state the occurrences of the jury room, which ought to be kept secret as well as privileged. It would subject jurors to influences by corrupt parties in an effort to have them impair their verdict after they had ceased to act as jurors. Although injustice may at times result from thus holding verdicts solemnly rendered unassailable by affidavits of jurors as to their not understanding the charge or as to their reasons for agreements, we deem it the better rule, and subject to less liability to injustice, that a verdict actually rendered shall be conclusively deemed to be a verdict, and beyond impeachment by the declaration of a juror as to a mental condition existing when he agreed upon a verdict, or as to his reasons for so agreeing."”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Mauch v. Manufacturers Sales & Service, Inc.

3. ““* * * [A]fter a jury has been discharged, no affidavit of a juror, and no affidavit of any other person relating to what a juror had said, will be received to impeach the verdict where the facts sought to be shown inhere in the verdict itself, such as the attempt to show that the jurors misapprehended the evi dence, or did not understand the charge of the court, or that they misconceived the legal consequences of their factual findings as to negligence * * 14A Dunnell, Dig. (3 ed.) § 7109(2).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Nebben v. Kosmalski