Martin v. Rieger’s Empirical Analysis
1986
Citation profile
27 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 31 later decisions — most recently September 2003 · most notably Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Tucker (2003), Alpha Zeta Chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity v. Sullivan (1987)
27 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 St. Louis Southwestern Railway Co. v. Pennington · Morrison v. Lowe · St. Louis Southwestern Railway Company v. Farrell · St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway Co. v. Bird · Swenson v. Hampton
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 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) The duration and intimacy of their relationship and the ties of affection between decedent and survivor. (2) Frequency of association and communication between an adult decedent and an adult survivor. (3) The attitude of the decedent toward the survivor, and of the survivor toward the decedent. (4) The duration and intensity of the sorrow and grief. (5) Maturity or immaturity of survivor. (6) The violence and suddenness of the death. (7) Sleeplessness or troubled sleep over an extended period. (8) Obvious extreme or unusual nervous reaction to the death. (9) Crying spells over an extended period of time. (10) Adverse effect on survivor’s work or school. (11) Change of personality of the survivor. (12) Loss of weight by survivor and other physical symptoms. (13) Age and life expectancy of the decedent. [ 289 Ark. at 296 ; 711 S.W.2d at 778 ]”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“The General Assembly has clearly stated that the public policy of this State is to allow recovery for wrongful death and for the mental anguish of survivors of the deceased. . . . The application of the mental anguish statutes to particular fact situations has given us difficulty through the years simply because mental anguish of all survivors is a natural incident of practically every wrongful death. We have construed the statutes to mean that the proximity of relationship between the deceased and the survivors is the most significant factor in determining whether recovery is allowable. Distant relatives generally have no more than normal grief and will not be allowed to recover without establishing something more.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“Such a remittitur is fixed by the highest estimate of the element of damage affected by the error.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Avery v. Ward
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.