Malone v. Gardner’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

28 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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"The court instructs the jury that it is conceded in this case that plaintiff and defendant were engaged in interstate commerce and transportation and therefore the right, duties and liabilities of the parties to this action are not in any way governed by the laws of the State of Missouri, but are governed solely by an Act of Congress, known as the Federal Employers' Liability Act. "You are further instructed that the Federal Employers' Liability Act provides as follows: `Every common carrier by railroad, while engaging in commerce between any of the several states * * * shall be liable in damages to any persons suffering injuries, while he is employed by such carrier in such commerce * * * for such injury resulting in whole or in part from the negligence of any of the officers, agents, or employees of such carrier * * *.' "You are further instructed that the said Federal Employers' Liability Act provides in part as follows: `In all actions hereafter brought against any such common carrier by railroad, under or by virtue of any of the provisions of this chapter to recover damages for personal injuries to an employee, the fact that the employee may have been guilty of contributory negligence shall not bar recovery, but his damages shall be diminished by the jury in proportion to the amount of negligence attributable to such employee: provided that no such employee who may be injured be held to have been guilty of contributory negligence in any case where the violation by such ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Crews v. Illinois Terminal R. Co.

2. “. “In recent cases the Supreme Court of the' Únited States' has said the Act. does not make the employer .the insurer of the safety of his employees; and the basis of the. employer’s liability is his-negligence, not the fact that injuries occur. But it is the clear Congressional intent ■ that, to the maximum extent proper, factual questions in actions arising under the Act should be left to the jury; that such cases may not be taken from the jury merely because the question of liability is close or doubtful; that the jury has the right to make all reasonably possible inferences from such probative facts in the evidence as the jury chooses to accept; and that it is not the function of a court to search the record for conflicting circumstantial evidence in order to take the case away from a jury on the theory that the court gives equal support to inconsistent and uncertain inferences.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Bartch v. Terminal R. Ass'n of St. Louis