Murdock v. Croughwell’s Empirical Analysis
2004
Citation profile
18 district · 30 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 52 later decisions — most recently September 2025 · most notably Mazurek v. Great American Insurance (2007), Snell v. Norwalk Yellow Cab, Inc. (2019)
18 district · 30 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 Wyshak v. American Savings Bank, F.A. · Purzycki v. Town of Fairfield · Singleton v. Christ the Servant Evangelical Lutheran Church · Stewart v. Federated Department Stores, Inc. · State v. Miranda
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 52 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The essential elements of a cause of action in negligence are well established: duty; breach of that duty; causation; and actual injury . ,. Duty is a legal conclusion about relationships between individuals, made after the fact, and [is] imperative to a negligence cause of action . .. Thus, [t]here can be no actionable negligence ... unless there exists a cognizable duty of care ... [T]he test for the existence of a legal duty of care entails (1) a determination of whether an ordinary person in the defendant’s position, knowing what the defendant knew or should have known, would anticipate that harm of the general nature of that suffered was likely to result, and (2) a determination, on the basis of a public policy analysis, of whether the defendant’s responsibility for its negligent conduct should extend to the particular consequences or particular plaintiff in the case ...” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Murdock v. Croughwell, 268 Conn. 559, 566 , 848 A.2d 363 (2004). Ultimately, “[t]he existence of a duty [of care] is a question of law.” Gordon v. Bridgeport Ho'tising Authority, 208 Conn. 161, 171 , 544 A.2d 1185 (1988). “Therefore, the question of whether a defendant owed a duty of care to an injured party is properly decided in the context of a motion to strike.” Patterson v. Foley, Superior Court, judicial district of New London, Docket No. CV 08 5007342 [ 2009 WL 2357124 ] (June 16, 2009, Martin, J.), citing Gordon v. Bridgeport Housing Authority, supra, at 171-”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“[T]here generally is no duty that obligates one party to aid or to protect another party.... One exception to this general rule arises when a definite relationship between the parties is of such a character that public policy justifies the imposition of a duty to aid or to protect another.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“The fact that the actor realizes or should realize that action on his part is necessary for another's aid or protection does not of itself impose upon him a duty to take such action.”
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.