Johnston v. Harris’s Empirical Analysis
1972
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 2 district · 45 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 53 later decisions — most recently December 2005 · most notably 42 Cal. 3d 490 - Frances T. v. Village Green Owners Assn. (1986), 125 Ill. 2d 203 - Rowe v. State Bank of Lombard (1988)
6 federal appellate · 2 district · 45 state decisions — followed in 12 states
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.
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 53 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The Court of Appeals apparently treated the action as solely based on a theory that decedent’s failure to provide proper locks and lighting had resulted in plaintiff’s injuries. Viewed as such, a fatal logical void existed as to the element of proximate cause. However, to so narrowly view plaintiff’s pleadings and proofs is to wholly ignore the interwoven assertion that decedent was negligent in creating a condition conducive to criminal assaults. The crux of plaintiff’s case was that in a high crime district it is reasonably foreseeable that inadequate lighting and unlocked doors would create conditions to which criminals would be attracted to carry out their nefarious deeds. Thus, on a theory not unlike that contemplated by sections 302B, 448 and 449 of 2 Restatement Torts 2d, pp. 88, 480 and 482, plaintiff asserted that decedent’s negligence consisted of enhancing the likelihood of exposure to criminal assaults by failing to provide adequate lighting and locks. Plaintiff argued, in effect, that decedent set a trap. We are of the opinion that 2 Restatement Torts, 2d, § 442B, p. 469, cited by the Court of Appeals, is not applicable to the instant case. Rather, in point are §§ 302B, 448 and 449, supra. Section 302B provides: ‘An act or an omission may be negligent if the actor realizes or should realize that it involves an unreasonable risk of harm to another through the conduct of the other or a third person which is intended to cause harm, even though such conduct is crimi”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage““If the likelihood that a third person may act in a particular manner is the hazard or one of the hazards which makes the actor negligent, such an act whether innocent, negligent, intentionally tortious, or criminal does not prevent the actor from being liable for harm caused thereby.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““An act or an omission may be negligent if the actor realizes or should realize that it involves an unreasonable risk of harm to another through the conduct of the other or a third person which is intended to cause harm, even though such conduct is criminal.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.