Wendland v. Akers’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

15 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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “As originally enacted in 1881, the wording was: "that all owners of dogs shall be held liable and responsible for damages to sheep or other stock killed or maimed by their dogs." Chapter 3294, Laws of Florida (1881). Thus, damage to persons was not included. But in the 1892 Compilation, Section 2341 provided: "Owners of dogs shall be held liable for damages to persons and stock killed or injured by their dogs." (Emphasis supplied.) We find no legislative enactment to include damages to persons within the scope of the statute. Later, in 1901, the legislature enacted Chapter 4979, Laws of Florida (1901), which provided: "When any dog or dogs shall kill or in any way damage sheep or other domestic animals in this State, the owner of such dog or dogs shall be liable upon the action for damages to the owner of such sheep and other domestic animals for the damage committed upon the same by such dogs." But in the next Compilation in 1906, Section 3142 provided: "Owners of dogs shall be liable for any damage done by their dogs to sheep or other domestic animals or live stock, or to person. " (Emphasis supplied.) Thus once again the compiler placed words in the Compilation which were not there when the act was adopted by the legislature. Although the validity of Section 767.01, Florida Statutes (1975), cannot now be questioned because of the rules relating to statutory re-enactments, Section 767.01 should be given a restrictive scope because the legislature never specifically included”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 408 So. 2d 769 - Utica Mut. Ins. Co. v. Jones

2. “The owners of any dog which shall bite any person, while such person is on or in a public place, or lawfully on or in a private place, including the property of the owner of such dogs, shall be liable for such damages as may be suffered by persons bitten, regardless of the former viciousness of such dog or the owners’ knowledge of such viciousness. A person is lawfully upon private property of such owner within the meaning of this act when he is on such property in the performance of any duty imposed upon him by the laws of this state or by the laws or postal regulations of the United States, or when he is on such property upon invitation, expressed, or implied, of the owner thereof; provided, however, no owner of any dog shall be liable for any damages to any person or his property when such person shall mischieviously or carelessly provoke or aggravate the dog inflicting such damage; nor shall any such owner be so liable if at the time of any such injury he had displayed in a prominent place on his premises a sign easily readable including the words "Bad Dog.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Tschida v. Berdusco

3. “`free to exercise his skill and his soundest judgment in rendering medical or surgical services without any interference from one who employs him and is not a servant or agent in the usual sense of those terms.'”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Theodore Ex Rel. Theodore v. Graham