Sharp v. LaBrec, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis
1994
Citation profile
5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently June 2019
5 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 Union Traction Co. v. Berry · New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad v. Henderson · Merriman v. Kraft · Shull v. B.F. Goodrich Co. · Bituminous Fire & Marine Insurance Co. v. Culligan Fyrprotexion, Inc.
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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“When presented with a request for a res ipsa loquitur instruction, the trial court's duty is to determine whether the plaintiff produced evidence from which the jury could reasonably conclude the existence of the underlying elements of exclusive control and probability of negligence. This is a sufficiency question. There only need be evidence and reasonable inferences therefrom, which, when viewed in the light most favorable to the proponent, would support the [theory] contained in the instruction. If there is no such evidence, the instruction is properly refused. On the other hand, if there is evidence from which a jury could reasonably find the existence of the elements, then the conditional res ipsa loquitur instruction, which merely tells the jury that if they do find the existence of these elements then they may draw the inference of negligence, must be given.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.