Owens v. Vesely’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

18 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 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “A party has a duty to keep abreast of all proceedings in a case from service of original process until final judgment [Bindley v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, supra, 335 S.W.2d 64 at 70 ], and is charged with notice of all subsequent steps taken in the case down to and including judgment, even if he has no actual notice of it. Meadowbrook Country Club v. Davis, 384 S.W.2d 611, 613 (Mo.1964). In the absence of a rule or statute it is not necessary to give a party notice of the time a case is set for trial. Rubbelke v. Aebli, 340 S.W.2d 747, 751 (Mo.1960). There was a local court rule here requiring the party requesting that a case be placed on the trial docket for a trial setting to give notice to the other party. We do not think that defendant can rely on such rule to prevent her from being negligent as she had no assurance that her current address was still known to plaintiffs or could have been ascertained by them or their counsel. She might have assumed this was so by believing that plaintiffs had her address but we think that such reliance, if there was such, did not justify her ignoring the pending suit. In Fox-Miller Grain Co. v. Stephans, 217 S.W. 994 , 996 (Mo.App.1920), coram nobis did not lie where the defendant answered but “laid dreamily by, without inquiry or excuse” and let a judgment be taken against him. Because of her failure to follow the progress of the case herself or to secure an attorney to do so for her, we cannot say that there was no substanti”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Walsh v. Walsh

2. “Although our courts have said that in the absence of a rule or statute it is not necessary to give a party notice of the date a case is set for trial, ... our supreme court has held that due process considerations, in the interests of fairness and justice, require notice be given whenever a party’s rights are to be affected. ... Certainly as to a party not in default due process considerations should apply.... The rights to notice and opportunity to be heard should be granted at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner.... Reasonable notice is to be determined in the light of the facts of the case.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Fields v. Gibson