Tholen v. Carney’s Empirical Analysis
555 F.2d 479 · 1977
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 1 district · 9 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 11 later decisions — most recently July 1998
1 federal appellate · 1 district · 9 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 Isbell Enterprises, Inc. v. Citizens Casualty Co. of New York · Motorists Mutual Ins. Co. v. Tomanski · Home Insurance Company v. Stuart-McCorkle, Inc. · Security National Insurance v. Hand · 12 Cal. App. 3d 59 - Allstate Insurance v. Shmitka
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 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Analysis starts with certain basic principles, well recognized in this [Alabama] jurisdiction: Where there are several joint tortfeasors responsible for the plaintiffs damages, the plaintiff is entitled to judgment in the full amount against each, as if the others did not exist. That is, there is no apportionment of damages among joint tortfeasors. The plaintiff can seek recovery of these judgments against all or any of the judgment debtors; however, to prevent “double recovery”, amounts recovered from one reduce the amounts recoverable from the others. The tortfeasors do not by reason of unequal payments to the plaintiff obtain a right of contribution from the other tortfeasors. It follows that the [plaintiffs], armed with judgments against both Carney and Greenhaw, are entitled to collect, if they can, the entire amount of the judgments from Carney alone; and this is so even though Greenhaw is insured. Yet, under its policy, Safeco has agreed “to pay all sums which the insured ... shall be legally entitled to recover as damages from the ... operator of an uninsured motor vehicle”; i.e., to pay the [plaintiffs] all sums which they are legally entitled to recover from Carney. Safeco would argue that other language in the policy limits its liability to situations where there are no other jointly liable persons from whom the plaintiffs could recover their judgments. The provision so relied upon, however, reads as follows: “Any loss payable under the terms of this coverage shall”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“Any loss payable under the terms of this coverage shall be reduced by: * * * (3) all sums paid by or on behalf of the owner or operator of the uninsured motor vehicle and any other person or organization jointly or severally liable together with such owner or operator for bodily injury to an insured.”
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.