Miller v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1981
Citation profile
20 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 20 later decisions — most recently December 2015
20 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 Miller v. Smith · 333 So. 2d 334 - Rosensweig v. Travelers Ins. Co. · 162 So. 2d 750 - Roberts v. Courville · 243 So. 2d 292 - Champagne v. Harahan Lions Club, Inc.
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 20 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The evidence was properly analyzed in the Court of Appeal opinion. Mrs. Miller saw the bartender apply the wax just before the music started, but neither she nor any other person noted the manner of application on that evening. The cause of Mrs. Miller’s fall is not clearly established. She and her husband danced the first number and completed it in spite of noticing that it was ‘unusually slippery.’ Returning to their table, Mr. Miller attempted to alert Mrs. Miller to a shadow on the floor which he suspected was wax; she noted a ‘shadow of something a little dark,’ but not in time to prevent her falling. There was, however, no other evidence of any foreign substance, 1 wax or otherwise, on the floor where Mrs. Miller fell. There was testimony from other witnesses that the dance floor was slick on the night of the fall, but the dancing continued into the night with no complaints from the dancers that the floor was too slippery. Not only does the proof fall short of establishing that Mrs. Miller fell because of some foreign substance on the floor, but it is also short of establishing that the floor was defective or dangerously slippery. Dance floors need to be smooth, and perhaps even ‘slippery’, enough for shoes to slide easily on the floor; but the record does not establish that this floor was unreasonably slick for the purpose for which it was designed and used.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage“incorrect to disregard totally the trial court's decision on the merits, thereby putting the plaintiffs in a worse position than if the trial judge had simply rendered judgment without assigning reasons.”
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.