Caplinger Ex Rel. Caplinger v. Werner’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 federal appellate · 6 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 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Plaintiffs would have us apply the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur as a substitute for proof of the instrumentality bringing about the explosion. This would extend the doctrine beyond its permissible scope. The rule creates an inference of negligence arising from an identifiable event. It assumes that the instrumental cause of the accident has been established. “Here there is no such proof. Plaintiffs’ claims are based on the contention that the instrumental cause of the explosion can be inferred from the installation of the gas furnace and that defendants’ negligence (or breach of warranty) may be inferred from the nature of the occurrence. Plaintiffs do not sustain the burden of proof by the compounding of inferences.” ⅜ * ⅝ ⅜ ⅜ ⅝ “Since plaintiff failed to prove with any degree of definiteness that the furnace, manufactured, sold and installed by the defendants, was the instrumental cause of the explosion, any inference of negligence as the proximate cause thereof must be based upon conjecture, surmise and guesswork.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. American Insurance Co. v. Horton