Guy v. Vieth’s Empirical Analysis
1988
Citation profile
8 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently February 2017
8 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 Andrews v. O'HEARN · Daniels v. Bloomquist · 84 Ill. App. 3d 41 - Nelson v. Hydraulic Press Manufacturing Co. · New v. Jackson · McKnelly v. Sperry Corp.
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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The best position seems to us to be that a trial judge’s ex parte communication with a jury in a civil case does not require reversal per se, but reversal is required where a timely complaining party shows specific prejudice or where, owing to the nature of the ex parte communication, the reviewing court is unable to determine whether the action was actually harmless.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“The recent case of Life From The Sea, Inc. v. Levy, 502 So.2d 473, 474 (Fla.App.1987), summarized the current status of the law. The overwhelming weight of authority, which we choose to follow, is that where a trial judge’s ex parte communication with a jury in a civil case does not affect any substantial rights of the parties, the error will be deemed harmless. A complaining party thus must demonstrate specific prejudice, which might include a showing of an inability of the reviewing court to determine from the record whether the action was actually harmless. Loatman v. Patillo, 401 A.2d 91 (Del.1979); Beck v. Wessel, 90 S.D. 107 , 237 N.W.2d 905 (1976) (affirming a judgment where the jury has asked the trial judge if he could give them certain information and he responded “no”). See also Nelson v. Hydraulic Press Mfg. Co., 84 Ill.App.3d 41 , 39 Ill.Dec. 422 , 404 N.E.2d 1013 (App.2d Dist.1980) (moving party must demonstrate specific prejudice before a jury verdict will be set aside as a result of an unauthorized communication with the jury); Fordyce v. Hansen, 198 Mont. 344 , 646 P.2d 519 (1982) (the ultimate inquiry is whether the irregularity affected the substantial right of the party). [[Image here]] The best position seems to us to be that a trial judge’s ex parte communication with a jury in a civil case does not require reversal per se, but reversal is required where a timely complaining party shows specific prejudice or where, owing to the nature of the ex parte com”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Godbee v. Dimick
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.