Corcoran v. Harran’s Empirical Analysis
1882
Citation profile
32 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 32 later decisions — most recently October 1978 · most notably Powers v. Allstate Insurance (1960), Baxter v. Chicago & Northwestern Railway Co. (1899)
32 state decisions — followed in 10 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.
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 32 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““We must therefore hold that, in actions of tort as well as contract, where the damages are clearly excessive, the trial judge may either grant a new trial absolutely, or give the plaintiff the option to remit the excess, and in case he does so order the verdict to stand for the residue. Certainly the practice will tend to promote justice and lessen the expense to litigants and the public. Besides, the allowance of such option is no more of an exercise of arbitrary power by the trial judge than it would be for him to set aside the verdict absolutely upon the sole ground that it is excessive, and then, in effect, direct a jury to bring in a verdict for a smaller sum, but not in excess of an amount named by the court.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.