Cecil v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1991
Citation profile
152 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 153 later decisions — most recently March 2019 · most notably In the Interest of M.S. (2003), Stephanz v. Laird (1993)
152 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedthe decision below (from Texas Court of Appeals, 12th District (Tyler))
Relationships
Relies on Taylor v. United States · Texaco, Inc. v. Pennzoil, Co. · Cherne Industries, Inc. v. Magallanes · Lowenfield v. Butler, Warden · Aero Energy, Inc. v. Circle C Drilling Co.
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 153 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“• a complete absence of evidence of a vital fact; • the court is barred by rules of law or evidence from giving weight to the only evidence offered to prove the vital fact; • the evidence offered to prove a vital fact is no more than a mere scintilla of evidence; or • the evidence establishes the opposite of a vital fact.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“In order to preserve a complaint for appellate review, a party must have presented to the trial court a .timely request, objection or motion, stating the specific grounds for the ruling he desired the court to make if the specific grounds were not apparent from the context.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“(1) a motion for instructed verdict; (2) a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict; (3) an objection to the submission of the issue to the jury; (4) a motion to disregard the jury's answer to a vital fact issue; or, (5) a motion for new trial.”
3 later decisions 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.