Larson v. Cactus Utility Co.’s Empirical Analysis
1987
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 118 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 122 later decisions — most recently July 2018 · most notably Transportation Insurance Co. v. Moriel (1994), Torrington Co. v. Stutzman (2001)
2 federal appellate · 118 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedthe decision below (from Texas Court of Appeals, 13th District)
Relationships
Relies on Pool v. Ford Motor Co. · Johnson v. Fourth Court of Appeals · R & P Enterprises v. LaGuarta, Gavrel & Kirk, Inc. · Flanigan v. Carswell · Choate v. San Antonio & Aransas Pass 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 122 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[A] court of appeals, in ordering a remit-titur, should do so on an insufficiency of the evidence, and not an abuse of discretion, standard. Today we reaffirm that principle as it applies to trial courts. Trial courts and courts of appeals should be subject to the same standard for a simple reason: no court is free to substitute its judgment for that of the jury. A court of appeals should uphold a trial court remittitur only when the evidence is factually insufficient to support the verdict ... To review trial court remittiturs under a different standard and continue the “abuse of discretion” test conflicts with a system that allows juries to set damages. The abuse of discretion standard robs of its vitality the constitutionally mandated right of trial by jury. Under an abuse of discretion review, so long as a reduction does not rise to a level shocking the court of appeals’ conscience, the trial judge can freely reduce jury awards, (citations omitted.) Such review effectively allows jurists' determinations to be substituted for those of the jury, a practice condemned since (1849) ... Additionally, employing different standards leads to the inconsistent result permitting trial court remittiturs to stand when the same orders would have been improper coming from a court of appeals. The statement of law in Flanigan v. Carswell... is correct so far as it recognizes that the same rule for remittiturs applies to both courts of appeals and to trial courts. However, that case is over”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“If a court of appeals holds that there is no evidence to support a damages verdict, it should render a take-nothing judgment as to that amount.”
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.