Krizak v. W. C. Brooks & Sons, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

33 federal appellate · 1 district · 8 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 49 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The cases clearly indicate that the trial judge's ruling either excluding or admitting evidence will not be disturbed, except in rare instances. For example, in automobile accident cases, the trial judge has been affirmed regardless of whether he admitted or excluded the proffered expert testimony of an 'accidentologist.' For as the Fourth Circuit stated: 36 'Whether, in any given case, the expert testimony is necessary to aid the jury in its search for the truth depends upon such a variety of factors readily apparent only to the trial judge that we must depend heavily upon his judgment.' 37 "Numerous other cases indicate that trial courts may differ in their assessment of the helpfulness of particular kinds of expert testimony. Because of the Federal Rules emphasis on liberalizing expert testimony, doubts about whether an expert's testimony will be useful should generally be resolved in favor of admissibility unless there are strong factors such as time or surprise favoring exclusions. The jury is intelligent enough, aided by counsel, to ignore what is unhelpful in its deliberations.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Specht v. Jensen

2. “[T]o have permitted plaintiffs counsel to malee specific reference to the report in the presence of the juiy, and to read defendant’s statement therein for the purpose of contradicting him, would have in effect accomplished indirectly what Code § 46.1-407 forbids to be done directly. Even in Krizak ... strongly relied on by the plaintiffs attorney in support of his position, the court concluded that the party making an accident report might be cross-examined on the contents thereof, but “in order to fully carry out the purpose of the privilege, no mention of the existence of the report as such may be made.” The fact that defendant testified differently from what the report showed as to how the accident occurred did not give plaintiff the right to use the report in a way that would have nullified the provisions of the statute. Hence we hold that the ruling of the trial court was correct.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Staton v. King