Williams v. Matlin’s Empirical Analysis
1946
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 29 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 43 later decisions — most recently July 1998 · most notably 90 Ill. App. 3d 368 - Sorenson v. Fio Rito (1980), Chavez v. Chenoweth (1976)
6 federal appellate · 29 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 Bernier v. Illinois Central Railroad · Wicks v. Cuneo-Henneberry Co. · Streeter v. Humrichouse · Rzeszewski v. Barth · Cloyes v. Plaatje
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 43 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“'merely tells the jury what should be known to the man on the street'”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““On cross-examination of plaintiff’s husband the defendant' submitted to him a statement prepared by an investigator, for the purpose of impeaching the witness. On redirect examination, in answer to a question by plaintiff’s counsel as to who wrote the statement, the witness replied that it was written by one of the men representing the Chicago Motor Club. Defendant objects that this was an improper injection of the insurance company into the case. This objection is not tenable. Here the defendant sought to take advantage of an alleged impeaching statement signed by plaintiff’s witness but prepared and obtained by an agent •of the insurer. The identity of the person preparing the statement, the nature of his employment and by whom employed became material for the purpose of showing his interest, in any, in the litigation. As said in Gegan v. Kemp, 302 Mich. 218, 225 , 4 N.W.2d 525, 527 , cited by defendant, in discussing a similar situation: ‘There can be no question but that after defendant introduced the statement prepared by the adjuster and witnessed by him, plaintiff had a right to show the circumstances under which the statement was made, who prepared it and what interest he had in it. * * * ””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Powell v. Goforth
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.