Sutton v. Combs’s Empirical Analysis
1967
Citation profile
10 federal appellate · 19 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 31 later decisions — most recently November 2018 · most notably Gray v. International Ass'n of Heat & Frost Insulators & Asbestos Workers, Local No. 51 (1971), Taylor v. Kennedy (1985)
10 federal appellate · 19 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 89 F. Supp. 580 - California Fruit Exchange v. Henry · Kiefer's Ex'r and Ex'x v. Deibel · Meuth's v. Meuth · Helm's Guardian v. Neathery · Hackworth v. Hiatt
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 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]o save the time and trouble involved in a lengthy jury determination when (1) there is a complete absence of pleading or proof on an issue or issues material to the cause of action or defense, or (2) there are no controverted issues of fact upon which reasonable men could differ. When [a] motion is made the trial court must consider the evidence in its strongest light in favor of the party against whom the motion was made and must give him the advantage of every fair and reasonable intendment that the evidence can justify. On appeal, the appellate court considers the evidence in the same light.”
4 later decisions 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.