Coleman v. Coker’s Empirical Analysis
1959
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 62 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 68 later decisions — most recently June 2018 · most notably Troy Mitchell v. Fayetteville Public Utilities (2012), Baxter v. Smith (1962)
3 federal appellate · 62 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 Swift & Co. v. Howard · Patterson Transfer Co. v. Lewis · 5 Smith & H. 18 - Frost v. Blue Ridge Timber Corp. · Nashville Pure Milk Company v. Rychen · Heron v. Girdley
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 68 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[We are] committed to the proposition of law that an employee who dies in the course of his employment as a result of a heart attack, although suffering from a previous heart disease, is covered under the Workmen’s Compensation Act even if the result was produced by ordinary exertion and usual strain of the work. [I]f the physical activity and exertion of an employee’s work aggravates a preexisting heart condition, precipitates the fatal heart attack, and thus hastens his death, such death is the result of accident arising out of and in the course of the employment within the meaning of our Workmen’s Compensation Law.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“When an employer employs a workman he takes him as he is and assumes the risk of having a weakened condition aggravated by some injury which might not hurt or bother a perfectly normal, healthy person. If the injury is the proximate cause of disability, i.e., excites and aggravates a previous weakened condition then the employer is liable.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““A study of the cases in which the defense has been asserted over the country unsuccessfully, shows that although what the employee did was prohibitive that his acts were instinctive or thoughtless rather than intentional and deliberate and thus it does not comply or come within the willful rule. The term needs no further discussion because the word within itself signifies what is meant, that is, regardless of what an employee is told, he goes on ‘hellbent for election’ anyhow.” Coleman v. Coker, 204 Tenn. 310 , 321 S. W.2d 540 (1959).”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.