Wall v. Trogdon’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

21 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 21 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““In an action for recovery of damages for injury resulting from actionable negligence, the plaintiff must show: First, that there has been a failure on the part of defendant to exercise proper care in the performance of some legal duty which he owed plaintiff under the circumstances in which they were placed; and, second, that such negligent breach of duty was the proximate cause of the injury- — -a cause that produced the result in continuous sequence, and without which it would not have occurred, and one from which any man of ordinary prudence could have foreseen that such result was probable under the facts as they existed. . . . Indeed, there must be legal evidence of every material fact necessary to support a verdict, and the verdict ‘must be grounded on a reasonable certainty as to probabilities arising from a fair consideration of the evi dence, and not a mere guess, or on possibilities.’ ” Wall v. Trogdon, 249 N.C. 747 , 107 S.E. 2d 757 .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Mabe v. Hill

2. ““If the evidence fails to establish either one oí the essential elements of actionable negligence, the judgment of nonsuit must be affirmed. “In the light of these principles applied to the evidence in the case there is no causal connection between the death of the fish in the lakes and the operation of the aircraft. “In the first place there is no evidence as to elements constituting the spray used in spraying the crops. If there were poison in the spray there is no evidence that it was poisonous to fish. If it were poisonous to fish there is no evidence that the fish died from the poison. Whatever the oily substance seen on the waters of one of the lakes was, there is no evidence as to what it was, or the source from which it came. The testimony of the expert fishery biologist is purely speculative, and founded on possibilities. Indeed the element of proximate cause is missing.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Reason v. Singer Sewing MacHine Company

3. “[f]light in aircraft over the lands and waters of this State is lawful, unless at such a low altitude as to interfere with the then existing use to which the land or water, or the space over the land or water, is put by the owner, or unless so conducted as to be injurious to the health and happiness, or imminently dangerous to persons or property lawfully on the land or water beneath.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 58 N.C. App. 727 - City of Statesville v. Credit & Loan Co.