684 F. Supp. 1481 - Gray v. Chacon’s Empirical Analysis
1988
Citation profile
2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently June 2002
2 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 Erie Co v. Tompkins · Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Estate J Bosch Second National Bank of New Haven · Bedwell v. Debolt · Daily v. Parker · American Transport Co. v. Central Indiana Railway Co.
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.
“Given that Indiana state law applies to this case, the first problem the court must address is the question of how this federal court should make the determination of what the applicable state law is. The deceptively simple formulation enunciated in Erie v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 [ 58 S.Ct. 817 , 82 L.Ed. 1188 ] (1938), mandates that the federal court merely apply that state law “declared by [the state’s] legislature in a statute or by its highest court.” Id. at 78 [ 58 S.Ct. at 822 ], A difficulty arises, of course, when a change in state law is not patent in the language of legislation and has not yet been authoritatively announced by the state court. Such a situation raises the question of whether a federal court can properly anticipate such a change in state law. The answer to this question is clearly yes. See, e.g., Commissioner v. Estate of Bosch, 387 U.S. 456, 465 [ 87 S.Ct. 1776, 1783 , 18 L.Ed.2d 886 ] (1967) (declaring that “the State’s highest court is the best authority on its own law. If there be no decision by that court then federal authorities must apply what they find to be the state law after giving ‘proper regard’ to relevant rulings of other courts of the State. In this respect, it may be said to be, in effect, sitting as a state court.”) Even in those cases — such as the one at bar — wherein the matter to be addressed by the federal court has not been ruled on by any state court, the federal court must still endeavor to ascertain what the state law would b”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Payton v. Benson“First, the rule itself has been termed `an antiquated survival of an arbitrary common law procedural concept, arising out of long forgotten semi-criminal forms of action.' Prosser & Keeton on Torts (5th Ed.) p. 133 It is a `surviving relic of the Cokian period of metaphysics.' Wigmore, Release to One Joint-Tortfeasor, 17 Ill.L.Rev. 563. In operation its results have been characterized as incongruous. `More often than otherwise they are unjust and unintended. Wrongdoers who do not make or share in making reparation are discharged, while one willing to right the wrong and no more guilty bears the whole loss... . The rule shortchanges the claimant or overcharges the person who settles.... Finally, it is anomalous in legal theory, giving tortfeasors an advantage wholly inconsistent with the nature of their liability.' (Citation omitted) On the other hand, the supposed justifications for the rule appear illusory. The fear of double recovery is unfounded since the amount paid should be credited upon any judgment obtained against other tortfeasors and after judgment a plaintiff may proceed as he chooses in making collections from judgment debtors so the argument that he should not be allowed to proceed piecemeal has no merit. Prosser & Keeton, supra, p. 333. To avoid some of these harsh consequences we have maintained a distinction between "releases" and other settlements denominated covenants not to sue, covenants not to execute or loan-receipt agreements. We have done so despite t”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent“First, it prevents an unfair prejudice against the defendant by precluding the plaintiff from recovering in excess of his injuries by successively obtaining settlements from the various tortfeasors in return for releases. Second, joint tortfeasors `constitute, in a sense, one entity, each of them being jointly and severally liable for injury to the plaintiff.'”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.