Thomas v. Solberg’s Empirical Analysis
1989
Citation profile
12 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 16 later decisions — most recently October 2010
12 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 Duncan v. Cessna Aircraft Co. · Charles v. Giant Eagle Markets · Doyle v. United States · Kussman v. City and County of Denver · Rambaum v. Swisher
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 16 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In addition, we believe that it would be anomalous to give the benefit of an advantageous settlement, not to the plaintiff who negotiated it, but to the non-settling tort-feasor. Had plaintiff made a disadvantageous settlement, she would have borne that consequence because her recovery against [the non-settling defendant] would have been limited to [the amount of the non-settling defendant’s fault]. At a minimum, symmetry requires that if the disadvantage of settlement is hers so ought the advantage be. Beyond that, we see no reason why a non-settling tortfeasor ought to escape the liability that is his by reason of the faulty assessment of probabilities by a settling tortfeasor. Indeed, such a rule might well discourage settlement by the last tortfeasor on the reasoning that his exposure is limited to his degree of fault and even that might be reduced by reason of pre-existing settlements.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Varner v. Perryman“... the proportionate credit rule is compatible with comparative fault; the one recovery policy underlying the pro tanto credit rule is not”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“plaintiffs bear the risk of poor settlements; logic and equity dictate that the benefit of good settlements should also be theirs”
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.