Bowley v. Duca’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 federal appellate · 21 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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The error in the request, and in the argument in support of it, lies in the failure to appreciate precisely what it is that may be recovered for in a case like this. The mother cannot recover for the deformity of the child. Proof that the child was or was not deformed when born would not affect the amount of the mother’s recoverable damage. Prescott v. Robinson, 74 N. H. 460. The award to her is on account of her apprehensions, entertained before the birth of the child, that certain untoward results concerning the child may follow as a result of the accident. It is a question of her mental suffering before the child is born. The existence of such suffering is not disproved by evidence that if she had been thoroughly versed in medical science she would have known that her fears were groundless.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Fehely v. Senders

2. “Upon the question whether the defendant has been guilty of negligence, the rule of reasonable anticipation applies. Minot v. Railroad, 73 N.H. 317 , 321 , and cases cited. But when his fault has been established, the rule has no application upon the issue of damages.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Derosier v. New England Telephone & Telegraph Co.