Burk Royalty Co. v. Walls’s Empirical Analysis
1981
Citation profile
49 federal appellate · 5 district · 230 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 307 later decisions — most recently March 2019 · most notably Transportation Insurance Co. v. Moriel (1994), Trenholm v. Ratcliff (1983)
49 federal appellate · 5 district · 230 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 In Re King's Estate · Garza v. Alviar · Gussie Fox v. Dallas Hotel Co. · Burt v. Lochausen · Middleton v. Texas Power & Light Co.
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 307 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Gross negligence, to be the ground for exemplary damages, should be that entire want of care which would raise the belief that the act or omission complained of was the result of a conscious indifference to the right or welfare of the person or persons to be affected by it.”
73 later decisions quote this exact passage“It shall be discretionary with the court whether to submit separate questions with respect to each element of a case or to submit issues broadly. It shall not be objectionable that a question is general or includes a combination of elements or issues.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“For example: there is evidence that the defendant, in a non-defective car, continues to drive at 65 miles per hour into a small town. The defendant runs a red light and passes a car over the center line before there is an accident. That is "some evidence” of gross negligence. If the court only considers that evidence, it must affirm a gross negligence finding. Then the court finds that the defendant’s wife and daughters, or other persons, are bleeding to death in the back seat of defendant's car; and they will die if they do not receive immediate medical attention. Will the court then use the "traditional no evidence” test to evaluate gross negligence? There may be negligence, yes. But is there conscious indifference to human life? The answer, of course, is that we should apply our traditional "no evidence” test. By taking an extreme risk, this hypothetical defendant greatly increased the likelihood (1) that an accident would prevent his wife and daughters from ever obtaining medical care, and (2) that additional medical attention would be required for both himself and bystanders. Jurors could nevertheless decide that the risk was excusable under the circumstances, which is their prerogative. Assuming that the jury decides this hypothetical defendant was grossly negligent, then this court could only reverse the verdict if the evidence in the record were legally insufficient to permit an inference that the defendant had actual subjective awareness of the risk he created. See W”
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.