36 Md. App. 98 - Rafferty v. Weimer’s Empirical Analysis
1977
Citation profile
25 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 25 later decisions — most recently July 2001 · most notably 61 Md. App. 670 - Schear v. Motel Management Corp. of America (1985), 87 Md. App. 699 - Owens-Illinois v. Armstrong (1991)
25 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 Peterson v. Underwood · Fowler v. Smith · Casey v. Roman Catholic Archbishop · Baltimore Transit Co. v. State Ex Rel. Castranda · Walston v. Sun Cab Co.
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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"In order to justify a holding that the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law, 'the evidence must show some prominent and decisive act which directly contributed to the accident and which was of such a character as to leave no room for difference of opinion thereon by reasonable minds.’ Baltimore & O.R.R. v. Plews, 262 Md. 442, 454 (1971).””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The Maryland law is well established that the trial court’s instructions to the jury must be read as a whole and that it is not permissible to take isolated portions of the charge which may contain inartificial methods of expression, when the charge, considered as a whole, fairly presents the case to the jury on the issues presented by the evidence in the case. [Citation omitted.] The purpose of oral charges is to tell the jury in simple words what the law is in a case before them, and we will not be too particular in criticizing the words used if the result is sufficient. [Citation omitted.] We have repeatedly stressed the fact that we cannot put the “trial judge in a strait jacket and prescribe or adopt a formula to be used and followed by him,” with respect to his instructions to the jury. [Citation omitted.]”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“"By the same token, characterization of the rule as not customary in non-death cases does not mean it is any less the law in such cases. An analysis of the reason for the rule requiring reduction of damages to present value in death cases makes clear that the same principles should apply in non-death cases. There is neither reason nor logic in an argument that it is error not to give the present value instruction in a death case, but error to grant such an instruction in a total and permanent injury case. .. .””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.