Williams v. Johnson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 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. “Common to both of these causes of action are certain facts which must be put in issue to defeat defendant's summary judgment motion, ie., (1) the owner, (2) of an animal with a propensity for potentially harmful behavior, (8) must know of that propensity, and (4) such behavior must be the proximate cause of injury to the plaintiff. In this ease, appellees denied knowl edge of harmful propensities. Appellant claimed knowledge of dangerous propensities was unnecessary to a common law cause of action. Appellant therefore failed to assert facts, by affidavit or otherwise, which would place in issue appellees' knowledge of the- vicious nature of their dogs. This was fatal to his maintaining a cause of action under these common law theories. His suit was premised on these theories, and the district court, therefore, correctly granted appellees summary judgment motion.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Borns Ex Rel. Gannon v. Voss