27 Tenn. App. 369 - Donegan v. Beasley’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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The general rule, established by an unbroken line of authority, is, that when a plaintiff sues all joint tortfeasors, or any number less than all, for an injury, he is entitled to a verdict for full compensation, against all the defendants, when he succeeds in convicting them of the wrong, without regard to the degree of guilt of each defendant. So far as he is concerned, each joint tortfeasor is bound to compensate him for the full injury sustained, whatever may be the grade of the offense as between themselves. As in the case of a misdemeanor-committed by a number of persons, all are principals, so all persons who contribute to the plaintiff’s injury are liable to make good his whole loss, whatever may be the grades of their offense, as between themselves. In the case of a joint wrong the question is, “Are the defendants guilty or not guilty, and, if guilty, what will compensate the plaintiff for his injury?” Mr. Addison, in his work on Torts, says: “We have already seen that where several persons commit a trespass in pursuit of one common design, each is answerable for the aggregate damage done by all. The jury cannot regularly assess several damages for one trespass, with which the defendants are jointly charged, for, though in fact one was more malicious and did greater wrong that the other, yet, all coming to do an unlawful act, the act of one is the act of all the parties present, and it is a rule of law that what the plaintiff hath laid joint in his declaration the ju”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. McCall v. Owens