Plumb v. Curtis’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 federal appellate · 4 district · 71 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 82 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Unless excluded by some rule or principle of law, any fact may be proved which logically tends to aid the trier in the determination of the issue. Evidence is admitted not because it is shown to be competent, but because it is not shown to be incompetent. No precise and universal test of relevancy is furnished by the law. The question must be determined in each case according to the teachings of reason and judicial experience. Thayer’s Cases on Evidence, 2, 3. ‘If the evidence offered conduces in any reasonable degree to establish the probability or improbability of the fact in controversy, it should go to the jury.’ Insurance Company v. Weide, 11 Wall. 438 , 440, 20 L. Ed. 197 . The question as to its admission or rejection addresses itself to the court as one to be answered with a view to practical rather than theoretical considerations. The guiding principle is well stated in Stephen’s Digest of the Law of Evidence, c. 1, p. 36, in these words: ‘The word “relevant” means that any two facts to which it is applied are so related to each other that, according to the common course of events, one, either taken by itself or in connection with other facts, proves or renders probable the past, present, or future existence or nonexistence of the other.’ ” Plumb v. Curtis, 66 Conn. 154 , 166, 33 Atl. 998 .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Texas & P. Ry. Co. v. Coutourie