Insurance Company v. Mosley’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

91 federal appellate · 17 district · 183 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 306 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Here tbe principal fact is tbe bodily injury. The res gestee are tbe statements of tbe cause made by tbe assured almost contemporaneously with its occurrence, and those relating to tbe consequences made while tbe latter subsisted and were in progress. * * * Rightly guarded in its practical application, there is no principle in tbe law of 'evidence more safe in its results. There is none which rests on a more solid basis of reason and authority. We think it was properly applied in the court below. In tbe ordinary concerns of life no one would doubt tbe truth of these declarations, or hesitate to regard them, uncontradicted, as conclusive. Their probative force would not be questioned. Unlike much other evidence, equally cogent for all the purposes of moral conviction, they have the sanction of law as well as of reason. The want of this concurrence in the law is often deeply to be regretted. The weight of this reflection, in reference to the case under consideration, is increased by the fact that what was said could not be received as ‘dying declarations,’ although the person who made them was dead, and hence could not be called as a witness.””

   8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Jack v. Mutual Reserve Fund Life Ass'n · Guild v. Pringle

2. ““ ‘Wherever the bodily or mental feelings of an individual are material to be proved, the usual expressions of such feelings are original and competent evidence. Those expressions are the natural reflexes of what it might be impossible to show by other testimony. If there be such other testimony, this may be necessary to set the facts thus developed in their true light, and to give them their proper effect. As independent, explanatory, or corroborative evidence, it is often indispensable to the due administration of justice. Such declarations are regarded as verbal acts, and are as competent as any other testimony, when relevant to the issue. Their truth or falsity is an inquiry for the jury.’ ” 145 U.S. at 296 , 12 S.Ct. at 913 .”

   7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Pheaster · Barnard v. United States

3. ““As one of the principal questions in the case was whether the injuries of the defendant were of a permanent or of a temporary character, it was cer tainly competent to prove that miring the two years which had elapsed between the happening of the accident and the trial there were several medical examinations into the condition of the plaintiff. Every one knows that when injuries are internal, and not obvious to visual inspection, the surgeon has to largely depend on the responses and exclamations of the patient when subjected to examination. ‘Whenever the bodily or mental feelings of an individual are material to be proved, the usual expressions of such feelings, made at the time in question, are also original evidence. If they were the natural language of the affection, whether of body or mind, they furnish satisfactory evidence. and often the only proof of its existence, and whether they were real or feigned is for the jury to determine. So, also, the representa!ions by a sick person of the nature, symptoms, and effects of the malady under which he is suffering at the time are original evidence. If made to a medical attendant, Vhey are of greater weight as evidence; but, if made to any oilier person, they are not, on that account, rejected.’ 1 Greenl. Ev. (14th Ed.) § 102.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Denver & R. G. R. v. Rodder · 8 Va. App. 400 - Kauffmann v. Commonwealth