68 N.C. App. 71 - Williams v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

11 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 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The parties stipulated that the original accident was the result of the negligence of the defendant Ling, and his negligence was its proximate cause. The second collision, which involved plaintiff and the second defendant Smith, took place some twenty to forty-five minutes later while plaintiff was directing traffic. There was no unbroken connection between the negligent act of defendant Ling and plaintiff’s injury. The facts do not constitute a continuous succession of events, so linked together as to make a natural whole. Rather, Ling’s negligence was too remote and not foreseeable as such to constitute a proximate cause of plaintiff’s injury. Plaintiff was injured by an independent act of negligence on the part of defendant Smith, an intervening act which was not itself a consequence of defendant Ling’s original negligence, nor under the control of defendant Ling, nor foreseeable by him in the exercise of reasonable prevision. Therefore, plaintiff’s injurious consequence must be deemed too remote to constitute the basis of a cause of action against Ling.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. O'CONNOR v. Nigg

2. “There was no unbroken connection between the negligent act of defendant Ling and plaintiff’s injury. The facts do not constitute a continuous succession of events, so linked together as to make a natural whole. Rather Ling’s negligence was too remote and not foreseeable as such to constitute a proximate cause of plaintiff’s injury. Plaintiff was injured by an independent act of negligence on the part of the defendant Smith, an intervening act which was not itself a consequence of defendant Ling’s original negligence, nor under the control of defendant Ling, nor foreseeable by him in the exercise of reasonable prevision.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 126 N.C. App. 476 - Jackson v. Howell's Motor Freight, Inc.

3. “Proximate cause is a cause which in natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any new or independent cause, produced the plaintiff's injuries, and without which the injuries would not have occurred, and one from which a person of ordinary prudence could have reasonably foreseen that such a result, or consequences of a generally injurious nature, was probable under all the facts as they existed.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 99 N.C. App. 1 - Johnson v. Skinner