Bechtel Corp. v. Winther’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “This general idea seems to have been accepted by the majority of jurisdictions in some degree. Two Supreme Court cases, the Parra-more case and the Giles case, have lent prestige to this view. In the former, an accident at an intersection of a country road and a railroad 100 feet from the plant was held compensable, because this was the only means of access to the plant; and in the latter, the same result was reached when the point in question was on the most convenient, though not the only, route. The clearest case for compensability, of course, is found when the off-premises route is the only means of access to the premises. In a California case, compensation was awarded for the death of an employee who was killed by a train on a crossing twenty feet from the factory gate, on a path between the public road and the factory entrance, since this was the sole authorized means of ingress and egress. But the special-hazard exception has been applied also when the off-premises route, while not the exclusive means of access, was the "usual" or "expected” or "regularly used” route. Conversely, if a reasonably safe and convenient route is available, and if the employee chooses a substantially more dangerous route, the exception will not be applied. A typical example is walking along a railroad right-of-way instead of a road.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Sokolowski v. Best Western Golden Lion Hotel