Snyder v. Wheeling Electrical Co.’s Empirical Analysis
1897
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 86 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 94 later decisions — most recently December 1997 · most notably 162 W. Va. 857 - Morningstar v. Black & Decker Manufacturing Co. (1979), Louisville & Nashville Railroad v. Marbury Lumber Co. (1899)
4 federal appellate · 86 state decisions — followed in 17 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.
Relationships
Relies on Seybolt v. . the N.Y., L.E. W.R.R. Co. · Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway Co. v. Locke · Dixon v. Pluns · Hawker v. B. &. O. R. R. · Parkersburg Industrial Co. v. Schultz
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 94 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Proof of an injury occurring to defendant as the proximate result of an act which, under ordinary circumstances, would not, if done with due care, have injured any one, is enough to make out a presumption of negligence. When a thing which causes injury is shown to be under the management of the defendant, and the accident is such as, in the ordinary course of things, does not happen if those who have the management use proper care, it affords reasonable evidence, in the absence of explanation by the defendant, that the accident arose from a want of care.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage““A live wire is exceedingly dangerous. So that proof of contact therewith and consequent damages makes out a complete case of prima facie negligence, and throws the burden on the defendant to show that such wire was in the streets without fault on his part.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““Suppose there is no evidence of negligence on the part of the ■defendant, does the mere fact that the wire1 fell create a prima facie presumption of negligence, sufficient, in the absence of something appearing in the ease to repel that presumption, to support the action? This involves the rule or principle of res ipsa loquitur,— the thing itself speaks. A wire charged with a deadly current of electricity falls from its proper place of elevation above the street to the surface of the street, and there, by contact with a man lawfully passing along the highway, kills him with its current. Are we to presume that its fall came from some negligence of the owner, unless the circumstances of the ease or facts shown by him shall show that its fall is not attributable to his negligence, but from some defect which that reasonable care and prudence proper in the case of such deadly wire was unable to discover, or some accident beyond his control; in' other words, from inevitable accident? I answer that the law raises a prima facie case of negligence. ’ ’”
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.