Williams v. Bailey’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

15 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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Generally, the character of a party is irrelevant in a civil action and cannot be inquired into if not put in issue by the nature of the proceeding, such as libel, slander, malicious prosecution, etc., where damage to character or reputation is an issue. The reason that evidence on the collateral issue of character is inadmissible is that it comes with too much dangerous baggage of prejudice, distraction from the issues, and surprise.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Williams v. McCoy · Haynam v. Laclede Electric Cooperative, Inc.

2. “All that is required of any objection to evidence is that the objection be sufficiently clear and definite [so] that the trial court will understand the reason for the objection_ A party is not required to continue to object when the trial court’s position on relevancy has been clearly established by overruling ... earlier objections_”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Estate of Gross v. Gross

3. ““The fact that [the driver] was previously a good driver or a good person does not tend to establish that he was not negligent at the time the fatal accident occurred, and evidence of his prior good record was therefore inadmissible.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Dunn v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.