Johnson v. Kanavos’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 4 district · 49 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 58 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““When, under the same conditions, several persons who have eaten the same food become similarly ill an inference may be warranted that the food which all had eaten was unwholesome and was the cause of their illness. Baxter v. Doe, 142 Mass. 558, 561 , 8 N.E. 415 ; Commonwealth v. Kennedy, 170 Mass. 18, 23 , 48 N.E. 770 ; Wigmore, Evidence (2d Ed.) §§ 442, 447. A contrary inference might be warranted if only one of several persons partaking of the same kind of food thereafter became sick. Landfield v. Albiani Lunch Co., 268 Mass. 528, 530 , 168 N.E. 160 ; Gracey v. Waldorf System, Inc., 251 Mass. 76, 78 , 146 N.E. 232 . Physicians who had treated the plaintiffs and were called as witnesses by them did not testify that in their opinion the illness of their patients was caused by eating frankfurt sandwiches. The absence of such testimony did not prevent findings for the plaintiffs. We think the evidence of the common experience of the three plaintiffs on the night in question afforded an adequate basis for a finding that the food sold by the defendant was unwholesome and was the cause of the illness of the three plaintiffs. * * * ””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Peckham v. Eastern States Farmers' Exchange, Inc.