26 Utah 2d 104 - State v. Acker’s Empirical Analysis
1971
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 14 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 18 later decisions — most recently January 1994
4 federal appellate · 14 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 Everhardt v. City of New Orleans · 42 Wis. 2d 42 - Bisenius v. Karns · Love v. Bell · State Ex Rel. Colvin v. Lombardi · 42 Ill. 2d 446 - The People v. Fries
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 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The principal question to be answered is whether the legislature can require a motorcycle rider or operator to wear protective headgear at all. The defendant argues that since the statute requires riders as well as operators to wear the device, it must be assumed that the law was enacted solely for the purpose of protecting the individual wearer. “This does not necessarily follow. While it was undoubtedly the intention of the legislature to enact a measure which would protect the life and limb of its citizens, it also is evident that any measure taken which would protect the operator of a motorcycle would tend to avoid collisions with other traffic upon the highway. Even if it were to be assumed that the legislature intended to protect only those who were riding upon the motorcycle from harm, the public certainly has an interest in that regard. Whenever a citizen becomes maimed or is killed, the entire public is affected to some degree. As John Donne suggested, each citizen is a clod of the entire whole, and when one citizen is diminished, we all suffer. Both hospitals and relief rolls are crowded, and it is a proper exercise of police power for the legislature to enact statutes which would tend to keep citizens out of the one and off of the other. Whether the wearing of the helmet is likely to reduce accidents and thus avoid death and maiming is a matter for the legislative body to determine and not for the courts. “It is settled law that a statute is presumed to be constit”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“"The statute here under consideration joins the onward march of the ever-increasing volumes of regulatory laws concerning which it is extremely questionable whether the benefits outweigh the burdens in the loss of personal freedoms and the expanding bureaucracy involved in their enforcement. I have interposed this dissent as an objection to what appears to be a limitless process of spreading tentacles of control into what ought to be matters of personal and private conduct. There ought to be a halt somewhere, and in my judgment this law reaches that point.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. People v. Poucher
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.