Cruz v. Wright’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 district · 5 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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Therefore, even if a loss-of-consortium cause of action did exist at common law in Utah (and there is no evidence that such an action did exist), that would not prevent the legislature from modifying or abolishing that cause of action if necessary to serve sufficiently strong legislative ends. Having considered the question, we conclude that the passage of the Married Women's Act was a reasonable legislative enactment intended and reasonably tailored to place men and women on equal footing with respect to their ability to bring actions for their own injuries and to extinguish the concept that a wife was the property of her husband. If, in the process, the husband's right to sue for loss of his wife's consortium, which may have never existed in Utah, was abolished, we conclude that the abolition was not an unreasonable step.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Laney v. Fairview City

2. “Finally, as we have interpreted the act, it applies only to medical doctors who had no preexisting duty to render aid. Thus, the act immunizes only true volunteers who render aid even though they are not obligated to do so. We think these limitations indicate the reasonableness of the act. The statute does not cut an unnecessarily wide swath through causes of action against medical providers. Rather, immunity is provided under limited circumstances and only for the purpose of encouraging potentially life-saving emergency medical care. Therefore, we think the act is a reasonable attempt to eliminate a clear social evil and does not violate article I, section 11 of the Utah Constitution.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Laney v. Fairview City

3. “Nowhere in this state's jurisprudence is it suggested that article I, section 11 flatly prohibits the legislature from altering or even abolishing certain rights which existed at common law. See Berry ex rel. Berry v. Beech Aircraft Corp., 717 P.2d 670, 676, 680 (Utah 1985).... In fact, in Berry , we specifically stated that the legislature may eliminate or abrogate a cause of action entirely if there is sufficient reason and the elimination or abrogation "is not an arbitrary or unreasonable means [of] achieving the objective." 717 P.2d at 680 .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Day v. State Ex Rel. Utah Department of Public Safety