Manthei v. Heimerdinger’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 federal appellate · 1 district · 43 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 50 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ ‘It is an ancient doctrine that a release to one joint trespasser, or a satisfaction from him, discharges the whole. The same doctrine applies to all joint torts, and to torts for which the injured party has an election to sue one or more parties severally. * ° ” If it were not so, a party having a claim against several persons on account of a single tort might sue one and settle the suit, receiving damages; he might then sue another and settle in the same way, and repeat the proceeding as to all but one, and then sue him and recover the whole damage, as if nothing had been paid by the others. A door would thus be opened to a class of speculations that do not deserve encouragement. The rule of law which makes one satisfaction or release a bar to further claims for the same tort is founded in good reason.’ ””

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 345 Ill. App. 158 - McClure v. Lence · 299 Ill. App. 3d 1066 - Cherney v. Soldinger

2. ““It is an ancient and well established rule almost without exception in England and America that for a single injury there can be but one recompense. When more than one unite in the commission of a wrong, each is responsible for the acts of all and for the whole damage ; also, where separate and independent acts of negligence by different persons concur in perpetrating a single injury, each is fully responsible for the trespass. Courts will not undertake to apportion the damage in such cases among the joint wrongdoers. The injured party has, at his election, his remedy against all or any number. . . . He may elect to look to one only and if he accepts from that one a benefit or property in satisfaction and release, he can go no further. He can’t have a second satisfaction. Having had a reparation from one who was responsible for all the damage and released him, all others who were jointly, or jointly and severally liable are also released. One satisfaction is a bar to further proceedings on the same cause of action.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 345 Ill. App. 158 - McClure v. Lence

3. ““The injury appellant received was a single indivisible one as a result of the tortious act of Jan Kerch. The damages he sustained are inseparable and the overwhelming weight of authority applicable under these conditions is that the ancient rule of the release of one operates to release all applies indiscriminately, i.e., to both types of tortfeasors, joint and independent concurring tortfeasors. (Muse v. De Vito, 243 Mass. 384 , 137 N.E. 730 ; McKenna v. Austin, 134 F.(2d) 659, 669 .)””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 39 Ill. App. 3d 637 - Witek v. Leisure Technology Midwest, Inc.