Anderton v. Montgomery’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 10 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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “(1) ... [T]he accident was of a kind which in the ordinary course of events, would not have happened had the defendants) used due care, (2) the instrument or thing causing the injury was at the time of the accident under the management and control of the defendant, and (3) the accident happened irrespective of any participation at the time by the plaintiff.”

   5 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Vanderwater v. Hatch · King v. Searle Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

2. “[T]he purpose of res ipsa loquitur is “to permit one who suffers injury from something under the control of another, which ordinarily would not cause injury except for the other’s negligence, to present his grievance to a court or jury on the basis that an inference of negligence may reasonably be drawn from such facts; and cast the burden upon the other to make proof of what happened.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Kitchen v. Cal Gas Co., Inc. · Roylance v. Rowe

3. “Res ipsa loquitur is an evidentiary doctrine aiding in the proof of negligence; it has no bearing on the issue of causation, which must be separately and independently established. As in any negligence action, a legally-recognizable causal link must be established between defendant’s act or omission and plaintiff's injury. Absent such a causal relationship, defendant’s conduct, negligent or otherwise, gives rise to no liability. Res ipsa loquitur does not relieve plaintiff of this obligation; rather, it permits him, in lieu of linking his injury to a specific act on defendant’s part, to causally connect it with an agency or instrumentality, under the exclusive control of the defendant, functioning in a manner which, under the circumstances, would produce no injury absent negligence. However, where the agency or instrumentality is not established to be the cause of plaintiff’s injury, or where it is not shown to be under the exclusive control of the defendant, the causal connection is not established, and the inference of negligent conduct giving rise thereto is nullified.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Robinson v. Intermountain Health Care, Inc.