Merback v. Blanchard’s Empirical Analysis
1940
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 15 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 19 later decisions — most recently September 1975
4 federal appellate · 15 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 Morehouse v. City of Everett · Sponable v. Thomas · Coca Cola Bottling Co. v. Shipp · Ries v. Cheyenne Cab & Transfer Co. · 101 Cal. App. 274 - Rath v. Bankston
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 19 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“There are many authorities announcing the rule that the driver of an automobile who fails to stop or turn aside to avoid an obstruction within the range of his lights is negligent as a matter of law. We think, however, that most of the courts recognize that this is not a hard and fast rule that must be invariably applied, and refuse to apply it when there is evidence from which the jury may find that there were disconcerting circumstances affecting the driver's actions at the time of the collision.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“When Thomas was asked why he did not see Merback's lights in his mirror when he stopped, he gave replies that the jury may have understood as meaning that he was blinded by the lights from Russell's truck; and they might have inferred that Merback's vision was also interfered with. We think that in view of these disconcerting circumstances it cannot be held that plaintiff was negligent as a matter of law in failing to avoid the collision. The question was one of fact for the jury.”
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.