Becker v. D & E DISTRIBUTING CO.’s Empirical Analysis
1976
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 30 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 35 later decisions — most recently June 2012 · most notably Larsen v. United Federal Savings & Loan Ass'n of Des Moines (1981), Doe v. Ray (1977)
4 federal appellate · 30 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Newbury v. Vogel · Bradshaw v. Iowa Methodist Hospital · Blaine v. Byers · Kawamoto v. Yasutake · West v. Broderick & Bascom Rope Company
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 35 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“This court has announced that expert testimony indieating that it is possible a given factual circumstance was the cause of plaintiff’s injury or “could have caused it” is insufficient, standing alone, to generate a fact question. Expert testimony indicating probability or likelihood of a causal connection is necessary for this purpose. However, when testimony of an expert witness that a described condition is merely “possible” or “might” exist as a consequence of a stated cause is coupled with other testimony, nonexpert in nature, that the described condition of which complaint is made did not exist before occurrence of those facts alleged to be the cause thereof, a fact question as to causal relation is generated. [Authorities.]”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“"[the] mere existence of a prior nondis-abling, asymptomatic, latent condition is not a defense. A tortfeasor whose act, superimposed upon such a condition, results in an injury may be liable in damages for the full disability. In these cases the injury, and not the dormant condition, is deemed to be the proximate cause of the pain and disability."”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.