Caldwell v. Bechtel, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis
631 F.2d 989 · 1980
Citation profile
9 federal appellate · 15 district · 7 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 33 later decisions — most recently September 2018 · most notably William Wrigley Jr. Co. v. Waters (1989), 454 So. 2d 496 - Berkel & Co. Contractors v. Providence Hosp. (1984)
9 federal appellate · 15 district · 7 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
Applies 33 U.S.C. § 901
Relies on Palsgraf v. Long Island R.R. Co. · MacPherson v. . Buick Motor Co. · 17 Cal. 3d 425 - Tarasoff v. Regents of University of California · Scalza v. United States · 37 Ill. 2d 273 - Miller v. DeWitt
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 33 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“One who undertakes, gratuitously or for consideration, to render services to another which he should recognize as necessary for the protection of a third person or his things, is subject to liability to the third person for physical harm resulting from his failure to exercise reasonable care to protect his undertaking, if (a) his failure to exercise reasonable care increases the risk of such harm, or (b) he has undertaken to perform a duty owed by the other to the third person, or (c) the harm is suffered because of reliance of the other or the third person upon the undertaking.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The duties that Bechtel undertook in its contract with WWLATA are relevant to this case, not because they illustrate Bechtel’s point that a contractual duty was owed only to WTMATA, but because by assuming a contractual duty to WMATA, Bechtel placed itself in the position of assuming a duty to appellant in tort. The particular circumstances of this case, including the Bechtel-WMA-TA contract, Becthel’s superior skills and position, and Bechtel’s resultant ability to foresee the harm that might reasonably be expected to befall appellant, created a duty to take reasonable steps to prevent harm to appellant.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“whether the contractual authority vested in [the engineering firm] with respect to job safety regulations created a special relationship between [the engineering firm] and [the operator] under which [the engineering firm] owed a duty to [the operator] to take reasonable steps to protect him from the foreseeable risk to his health posed by the dust laden Metro tunnels.”
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.