Ellis v. Brown’s Empirical Analysis
1955
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 23 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 28 later decisions — most recently May 1998 · most notably Downs v. United States (1975), 314 So. 2d 765 - Martin v. United Security Services, Inc. (1975)
3 federal appellate · 23 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 Florida Central & Peninsular Railroad v. Foxworth · Ake v. Birnbaum · Florida East Coast Railway Co. v. Hayes · Jacksonville Electric Co. v. Bowden · 139 Ohio St. 208 - Allen, Admr. v. Burdette
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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[C]ontrary to the provisions of Lord Campbell's Act, the prototype of our Wrongful Death Act, under our Act the exclusive right of action inures to the persons named therein, in the order named, and limits the damages recoverable to such `as the party * * * entitled to sue may have sustained by reason of the death of the party killed,' Section 768.02 Fla.Stat., F.S.A.; whereas, under Lord Campbell's Act, and those of many other states, the right of action is given to the administrator of the deceased person, who sues for the benefit of all the beneficiaries of the estate of the deceased person. * * * As further evidence of the peculiarity of our Wrongful Death Act, it might be noted that where the deceased person left neither spouse nor child or other person dependent upon him for support, so that the cause of action devolves upon the administrator of his estate, such administrator can recover the full value of the loss of prospective estate of the decedent, reduced to present worth. * * * So, again, it might be said that it is cheaper to kill a person who leaves a spouse or child or other person dependent upon him for support, than it is to kill a person who is survived by no one in the designated classes. ¶ But, as noted, the inequalities of the Act should be resolved by legislation and not by judicial pronouncement.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“"The ground upon which evidence of prospective earnings of the deceased was sought to be introduced was that, if an action based upon a claim of permanent injuries had been instituted by the person injured, evidence would have been admissible to show his probable length of life and thereby furnish a basis of computation of the loss resulting from his inability to work and earn money from the time of his injury to the probable time of his death. However, a complete answer to this proffer of evidence is that, while it tends to show the probable length of life and the estimated time of death, it has no place in this case, for the actual time of death is established and it becomes unnecessary to deal in probabilities. Where death has actually occurred, the theory of prospective damages included in such survival claim has no place whatever. Mortality tables are competent because they are regarded as the best evidence of life expectancy; but they have no applicability and their competency therefore disappears when there is no expectancy of life to calculate. Fact had been substituted for prophecy. Death is not a matter of the future; it had already occurred. What had been uncertain and speculative became definite and certain; what had been unknown became known. The loss sustained by an injured person accrues at the time of his death, and it is the wrongful death which gives rise to a cause of action on behalf of the designated next of kin. "It must be concluded, therefore, that in ”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“"* * * Where, however, the remedy by revival of the pending action is not exclusive, but there also exists a right of action in behalf of certain designated persons to recover compensation for their pecuniary loss, a large element of which is loss of support, it is generally held that the injured person's earning capacity from the time of his death for the period of his life expectancy is to be the basis for assessing compensation for loss of support; hence, in the revived action, compensation for impaired or destroyed earning capacity is limited to the period of time intervening between the injury and the death. This seems to be necessary if double damages are to be avoided."”
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.