Lander v. Seaver’s Empirical Analysis
1859
Citation profile
2 district · 38 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 41 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2021 · most notably 3 Cal. 3d 914 - Gibson v. Gibson (1971), 2 Cal. 3d 161 - Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. Superior Court (1970)
2 district · 38 state decisions — followed in 22 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.
Relationships
Relies on Fuller v. Gould · Hathaway v. Rice
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.
“‘ ‘ The law as we deem it to exist is this: A schoolmaster has the right to inflict reasonable corporal punishment. He must exercise reasonable judgment and discretion in determining when to punish and to what extent. In determining upon what is a reasonable punishment, various considerations must be regarded, the nature of-the offense, the apparent motive and disposition of the offender, the influence of his example and conduct upon others, and the sex, age, size and strength of the pupil to be punished. Among reasonable persons much difference prevails as to the circumstances which will justify the infliction of punishment, and the extent to which it may properly be administered. On account of this difference of opinion, and the difficulty which exists in determining what is a reasonable punishment, and the advantage which the master has of being on the spot to know'1 all the circumstances, the manner, look, tone, gestures and language of the offender (which are not always easily described), and thus form a correct opinion as to the necessity and extent of the punishment, considerable allowance should be made to the teacher by way of protecting him in the exercise of his discretion. Especially should he have this indulgence when he appears to have acted from good motives and not from anger or malice. Hence the teacher is not to be held liable on the ground of excess of punishment, unless the punishment is dearly excessive and would be so held in the general judgment of reas”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.