44 Cal. 2d 839 - Lynch v. Birdwell’s Empirical Analysis
1955
Citation profile
109 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 111 later decisions — most recently March 2011 · most notably 69 Cal. 2d 452 - Woodcock v. Fontana Scaffolding & Equipment Co. (1968), People v. Farrara (1956)
109 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 31 Cal. 2d 586 - Vaughn v. Jonas · 37 Cal. 2d 465 - Huffman v. Lindquist · Zuckerman v. Underwriters at Lloyd's · 21 Cal. 2d 109 - Deevy v. Tassi · Mercer - Fraser Co. v. Industrial Accident Commission
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 111 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“.. “ On the issue of wilful misconduct, the evidence is insufficient to support a determination favorable to plaintiff. The jury were instructed as follows on this issue: “ ‘The words “wilful misconduct” have a meaning in the law, additional to that which they have in common usage. If we were to use the words in their ordinary sense, they would mean simply the indulging in wrongful conduct by conscious choice. Such conduct might consist of doing something that ought not to be done or in failing to do something that ought to be done. But in order to be a basis for liability to a guest under our law, the misconduct must be something more than intentional and wrongful; it must be done under circumstances which show either knowledge that serious injury to the guest probably will result, or a wanton and reckless disregard of the possible results. “ ‘Wilful misconduct means something different.from and more than negligence, however gross the negligence may be. A guest may not recover against her host unless the conduct of the host amounted to wilful misconduct, and that means intentional, wrongful conduct, done either with knowledge that serious injury to the guest probably will result, or with a wanton and reckless disregard of the possible results. . . . “ ‘ [I] f you should find that defendant was negligent, and if you should find that she intentionally did something that was wrongful and which was a proximate cause of injury to plaintiff, still a case of willful misconduct is n”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Olson v. Jones““You will note from the foregoing that although wilful misconduct is a form of negligence, it is something more tlym negligence; more even than what might be called gross negn gence. A guest may not recover against his [her] host-driver or against the owner of the vehicle in which he [she] was a guest for negligence, however it might be classified, unless that negligence amounted to wilful misconduct, as defined in these instructions.””
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.