Gunning v. Cooley’s Empirical Analysis
281 U.S. 90 · 1930
Citation profile
1,319 federal appellate · 90 district · 166 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,874 later decisions (77 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2021 · most notably Erie Co v. Tompkins (1938), The Boeing Company v. Daniel C. Shipman (1969)
1,319 federal appellate · 90 district · 166 state decisions — followed in 19 states
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.
Appellate journey
reviewedGunning v. Cooley (from District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Patton v. Texas & Pacific Railway Co. · Slocum v. New York Life Insurance · Improvement Company v. Munson · Texas & Pacific Railway Co. v. Cox
Cited together with Pennsylvania Co v. Chamberlain · Slocum v. New York Life Insurance · Lumbra v. United States · Erie Co v. Tompkins · Baltimore Co v. Groeger
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 1,874 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“that in every case, before the evidence is left to the jury, there is a preliminary question for the judge, not whether there is literally no evidence, but whether there is any upon which a jury can properly proceed to find a verdict for the party producing it, upon whom the onus of proof is imposed.”
30 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““The evidence shows that, while difficult to do, it would be possible by means of a dropper to apply acid to eardrums without allowing it to come into contact with other tissues. There was no scar or anything to indicate that acid had touched any part of the canal leading to either eardrum. Plainly it would have been impossible for defendant to have closed the external ears without allowing the liquid used for that purpose to touch the canal tissues. But plaintiff was not required specifically to show what defendant did put in her ear or that the treatment destroyed either of her eardrums or made her deaf. If the evidence was sufficient to justify a finding that defendant negligently put a harmful fluid in her ears causing her pain and injury, the motion was properly denied. “As the credibility of witnesses and the weight to be given to their testimony are for the jury, plaintiff’s testimony as to the treatment and immediate effect upon her and the testimony of others as to her condition shortly afterwards constituted sufficient evidence to warrant a finding that instead of oil defendant negligently put some harmful liquid into her ears thereby causing her pain, suffering and some injury in and about her ears.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Myrlie v. Hill
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.