Rockey v. Ernest’s Empirical Analysis
1951
Citation profile
37 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 39 later decisions — most recently April 1974 · most notably Smith v. Bell Telephone Co. (1959), Lanni v. Pennsylvania Railroad (1952)
37 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 Pennsylvania Railroad v. Pittsburgh · McDonald v. Ferrebee · Pope v. Reading Company · Giannone v. Reale · Houston v. Republican Athletic Ass'n
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 39 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The evidence is insufficient to warrant recovery if it fails to describe, picture or visualize what actually happened sufficiently to enable the fact-finding tribunal reasonably to conclude that the defendant was guilty of negligence and that his negligence was the proximate cause of the accident. A verdict cannot be supported on the basis of mere speculation or conjecture. Proof of negligence may be furnished by the circumstances themselves and it is not essential to have eyewitness testimony, but where the circumstantial evidence is offered because direct proof is not available it must provide as the only reasonable inference the conclusion that the accident was caused by the negligence of the defendant. * ... In order to determine the question of defendant’s negligence the crucial fact to be ascertained was whether the boy, riding his bicycle, was ever in front of defendant’s car at such a distance ahead of it and for such an interval of time that defendant, had he been properly alert, would have been able to stop his automobile and thus avert a collision. . . . The testimony does not furnish answers to any of these questions, [how and when he got onto or in front of defendant’s car] but leaves everything to mere conjecture and speculation; . . . .””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Gift v. Palmer“. . . It is well settled that conduct is negligent only if the harmful consequences thereof could reasonably have been foreseen and prevented: Leoni v. Reinhard, 327 Pa. 391 , 194 A. 490 ; Franzen v. Goodman, 325 Pa. 518 , 190 A. 888 ; White v. Roydhouse, 211 Pa. 13 , 60 A. 316 ; Gaupin v. Murphy, 295 Pa. 214 , 145 A. 123 .”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Brusis v. Henkels
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.