Brawley v. Esterly’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

42 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 42 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"The answers of the witness were statements of his "cause and effect", "matter of fact" comprehension of things he had seen which were like those he had often personally observed in the ordinary experiences of everyday life. His answers were opinions or conclusions in a sense, but they were not all objectionable for that reason. In many cases where the thing a witness has seen is impossible or difficult of description to a jury precisely as it appeared to the witness at the time he saw it, the nonexpert witness may properly testify in a comprehensively descriptive manner which is in a sense an opinion, or a conclusion ordinarily within the province of the jury. It would seem it is of greater aid to the jury for him to say it that way, because the nature of a thing, difficult of description, may be more clearly conveyed to the jury that way than if the witness were obliged to use verbiage meticulously describing the minute physical aspects of the thing.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 2001 Conn. Super. Ct. 5309 - Tine v. Baker, No. 116645 (Apr. 12, 2001)