Malek v. Miller Brewing Co.’s Empirical Analysis
1988
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 9 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 15 later decisions — most recently April 2019
2 federal appellate · 9 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 239th Judicial District Court)
Relationships
Relies on Patterson v. United States · El Chico Corp. v. Poole · Borel v. Fibreboard Paper Products Corp. · McKisson v. Sales Affiliates, Inc. · Otis Engineering Corp. v. Clark
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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In spite of a societal dynamic to expand duty, Texas still follows a general rule that Texans do not owe others general amorphous legal duties. The rule in Texas still distinguishes between moral and legal duty. Although one may have a moral duty to prevent a blind man from crossing a busy street against a light, a person has no legal duty to do so unless additional factors exist. These other factors include the existence of familial or voluntary relationships which impose a duty, statutes or ordinances which may legally require action, or special circumstances such as having placed the blind man in his precarious position in the first place. These relationships and circumstances may be born of contract as well as other voluntary or legal origins. These are the duties that must expand and mutate in response to changes in society.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“Many products cannot possibly be made entirely safe for all consumption, and any food or drug necessarily involves some risk of harm, if only from overcon-sumption. ... The article sold must be dangerous to an extent beyond that which would be contemplated by the ordinary consumer who purchases it, with the ordinary knowledge common to the community as to its characteristics. Good whiskey is not unreasonably dangerous merely because it will make some people drunk and is especially dangerous to alcoholics ... (emphasis added).”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[A] seller is not required to warn with respect to products or ingredients in them, which are only dangerous, or potentially so, when consumed in excessive quantity, or over a long period of time, when the danger, or potentiality of danger, is generally known and recognized. Again, the dangers of alcoholic beverages are an example....”
1 later decision 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.