Claybrook v. Acreman’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Our courts have uniformly held that the omission of a party to produce important testimony relating to a fact of which he has knowledge, and which is purely within his control, raises the presumption that the testimony, if produced, would be unfavorable. A review of the cases on this point has brought us to these conclusions: First, an attorney may comment upon the failure of his adversary to call as a witness a person who was in his employ at the time the cause of action arose, if such person was in a position to acquire material information. Second, if the missing witness referred to is not an employee, then he must stand in some special position to such adverse party to predispose him to favor such adverse party. And, third, the word ‘available’ does not mean that the missing witness must be within the jurisdiction of the court so that he can be reached by subpoena, but means that the witness can be located so that he can either be served by a subpoena or his testimony secured by deposition. Tex.—Jersey Oil Corp. v. Beck, 157 Tex. 541 , 305 S.W.2d 162 , 68 A.L.R.2d 1062 .””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Gifford v. Woodruff