Chapman v. Craig’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “it offends public policy to say that a citizen invites private liability merely because he happens to create a need for those public services. Citizens should be encouraged and not in any way discouraged from relying on those public employees who have been specially trained and paid to deal with these hazards. Additionally, a citizen does not have the right to exclude public safety officers from emergency situations or to control their actions once they have been alerted to an emergency and arrive on the scene. Indeed, a citizen may have a legal duty to summon a public safety officer in some instances and to say he may, in the course of discharging that duty, risk tort liability to officers who are specially trained and hired to cope with these hazards, strikes us as inconsistent and unfair. Finally, although we are aware of the widespread existence of liability insurance, we believe these risks are more effectively and fairly spread by passing them onto the public through the government entities that employ firefighters and police officers.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Rennenger v. Pacesetter Co.

2. “This is not to say that firemen or police officers are barred from recovery in all instances in which they are injured by negligent acts. The relevant inquiry is whether the negligently created risk which resulted in the fireman’s or policeman’s injury was the very reason for his presence on the scene in his professional capacity. If the answer is yes, then recovery is barred; if no, recovery may be had. [[Image here]] As these cases point out, although policemen are barred from recovery against the person whose negligence created the need for their presence, they are not barred from recovery for negligent or intentional acts of misconduct by a third party. Nor would they be barred from recovery if the individual responsible for their presence engaged in subsequent acts of negligence or misconduct once the officer was on the scene.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Rennenger v. Pacesetter Co.