Williamson v. Bennett’s Empirical Analysis
1960
Citation profile
50 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 55 later decisions — most recently June 2011 · most notably Dickens v. Puryear (1981), Johnson v. Ruark Obstetrics & Gynecology Associates, P.A. (1990)
50 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 Spade v. Lynn & Boston Railroad · 5 E.H. Smith 107 - Mitchell v. . Rochester Railway Co. · Orlo v. Connecticut Co. · 1 Wis. 2d 594 - Colla v. Mandella · Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway Co. v. Hayter
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 55 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Plaintiff did not testify and does not now contend that she was frightened by the collision between her automobile and the defendant’s sportscar. Neither does she assert that her anxiety was occasioned by the grinding sound along the left side of her car. . . . When the collision occurred she envisioned the possibility that she had collided with a nonexistent child on an imaginary bicycle. In short, she was not frightened by what actually happened but by what might have happened. It was not the collision that caused her anxiety, it was something that did not exist at all, a phantom child on a non-existent bicycle.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage““This cause involves mental distress and invasion of emotional tranquility. It concerns itself with fear and resultant neurasthenia allegedly caused by ordinary negligence. In so far as possible we shall avoid consideration of those situations wherein fright, mental suffering and nervous disorder result from intentional, wilful, wanton or malicious conduct.” (Emphasis original.)”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Dickens v. Puryear“[T]he general principles of the law of torts support a right of action for physical injuries resulting from either a willful or a negligent act none the less strongly because the physical injury consists of a wrecked nervous system instead of wounded or lacerated limbs, as those of the former class are frequently much more painful and enduring than those of the latter.”
1 later decision 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.