Waller v. Shell Oil Company’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 state decisions

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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"We are not unmindful of our earlier cases holding that medical testimony, as other expert testimony, is intended to aid, but not to conclude a court or jury. See Elsea v. Broome Furniture Co., 47 N.M. 356 , 143 P.2d 572 ; Lemon v. Morrison-Knudsen Co., 58 N.M. 830 , 277 P.2d 542 ; Gilbert v. E.B. Law & Son, Inc., 60 N.M. 101 , 287 P.2d 992 , and Seay v. Lea County Sand & Gravel Co., 60 N.M. [399], 292 P.2d 93 , only recently decided. We have no intention of overruling these cases on this subject. Nor do we think our holding in this case in any way modifies or impairs the decisions mentioned. "What we here hold is that where a plaintiff's entire case rests upon proof of subjective symptoms and the testimony, not alone of medical experts produced by defendant, but of a physician presented and vouched for by the plaintiff, himself, flatly contradicts the finding of the jury as to the extent of disability, partial in character, it so weakens the testimony relied upon as to deny it substantial character. The persistent effort of plaintiff's counsel to draw from the experts, even his own, the slightest evidence of damage to a disc in the spine ended in complete failure. The same result followed the effort to have confirmation from plaintiff's expert, Dr. McIntire, of the presence of a `dead spot,' or numbness, in plaintiff's heel. "Indeed, throughout the testimony failed to show anything beyond soreness from muscular strain, following an unwitnessed accidental injury. * * *"”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Smith v. Spence & Son Drilling Company