Smith v. Wallace’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The Court instructs the jury that if you find and believe from the evidence that as defendant drove her automobile into the intersection in question there was a truck stopped in the inside or south lane for westbound traffic on Truman Road, and that defendant stopped her automobile in the middle of the intersection in front of that truck facing in a northerly direction and at that time plaintiff was approaching in the center lane for westbound traffic and about one half block from the intersection and that plaintiff saw or in the exercise of the highest degree of care could have seen defendant’s automobile start forward to go north on Hardesty at a speed of from five to ten miles per hour, and that plaintiff thereafter negligently veered his car from the center lane into the outside or north lane of traffic and into collision with the right rear half of defendant’s automobile, and that the plaintiff was thereby negligent, and that any such negligence directly caused or directly contributed to cause the collision, then your verdict must be for defendant on plaintiff’s claim for damages. “And if you further find and believe from the credible evidence that at the time and place in question defendant was not negligent as submitted in these instructions and that defendant’s automobile was damaged in said collision, then you must return a verdict in favor of defendant on her counterclaim”.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Bartlett v. Cain