Leonard v. Hodge’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “If the jury reads that sentence to refer only to plaintiffs’ claims, then they are, at the least confused about the instruction’s silence upon the burden of proof on the contributory-negligence issue, and the omission of the words ‘or defense’ would be prejudicial to plaintiffs. But there is no reason to suppose that the jury so understood the sentence. The jury may be presumed to have understood the word ‘claim’ in its usual and ordinary meaning. The word ‘claim’ is no term of art. It has no technical meaning. It is not de fined in the instructions. In everyday parlance it is used to mean ‘contention’ or ‘argument.’ Judicial opinions and other formal writings frequently use it with that meaning. We do no violence to the language if we assume that the jury understood it in the same sense. The defendants claimed that Cecil was con-tributorily negligent. That was their claim. The instruction told the jury that defendants had the burden to prove their claim. If the term ‘claim’ did give the jury pause, the fact that the sentence refers both to the plaintiffs’ claims (for damages) and to defendant’s claim (of contributory negligence) is borne out by the fact that if refers to ‘the party whose claim depends upon that proposition.’ Plainly implied from the use of the term ‘party’ is the fact that either the plaintiff or the defendant might have, or might make, a claim. It is not only the plaintiffs’ claims that are intended here. It is the claim of a party, including both the plain”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Havrilla v. Millers Mutual Insurance Ass'n of Illinois