Prettyman v. Irwin’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

40 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 41 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““It does not follow, however, that the question of the effect of plaintiff’s delay in issuing the alias writ cannot be raised and decided prior to a trial on the merits. . . . Special pleading being abolished and thereby the method previously in force for raising this question in limine being done away with, but not the right to have it preliminarily decided, the courts are left free to provide an appropriate remedy, by general rule or special order ... by adopting the practice approved in the cognate case of Forrest v. Phila. Rapid Transit Co., 261 Pa. 383, 389 , and granting a rule to show cause why a judgment of non pros should not be entered, because the particular writ was not issued in time. If, on the hearing thereof, the essential facts are undisputed, the rule should be made absolute or discharged as those facts warrant; but if there is an issue of fact to be decided, the rule should be discharged without prejudice, and the determination of this question submitted to the jury at the same time as the trial of the other issues, just as was the practice prior to the Procedure Acts____””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Zarlinsky v. Laudenslager