Rocky Mountain Helicopters, Inc. v. Bell Helicopters Textron’s Empirical Analysis
805 F.2d 907 · 1986
Citation profile
15 federal appellate · 6 district · 9 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 40 later decisions — most recently July 2020 · most notably Benitez-Allende v. Alcan Aluminio do Brasil, S.A. (1988), Brazos River Authority v. GE Ionics, Inc. (2006)
15 federal appellate · 6 district · 9 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 Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City · Holmes v. United States · Cochran v. United States · Cavnar v. Quality Control Parking, Inc. · Rozier v. Ford Motor 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 40 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[i]t would strain the spirit of the remedial measure prohibition in Rule 407 to extend its shield to evidence contained in post-event tests or reports”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Bell’s second area of appeal concerns several evidentiary rulings made by the district court excluding evidence offered by Bell and, in one instance, admitting evidence offered by Rocky Mountain. The most compelling issue raised by Bell is its objection to the exclusion of evidence offered to show that Rocky Mountain was negligent in failing to exercise reasonable care for its own property by allowing an untrained and reckless pilot to command the helicopter after receiving notice of such facts. Bell ... offered to call Phil Massicotte, a chief pilot, to testify about Ball’s flying competence as it existed some period of months before the accident and to testify that he told supervisors at the time that Ball was not ready to fly as “left seat” or command pilot, the position Ball was flying at the time of the accident. Finally, Bell offered the deposition of a chocker setter, Mark Bartley. Bartley testified that from a chocker setter’s point of view, Ball was “a little bit dangerous” and that he had complained about Ball to his superiors. After objections by Rocky Mountain, the trial judge excluded all of this evidence, exclusions which Bell claims were prejudicial error. The district court was[, in part] ... concerned that such evidence was irrelevant, prejudicial or improper character evidence. Much of it is in the nature of character evidence which, in civil cases, is not admissible for the purpose of proving that a person acted in conformity therewith on a particular occas”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“The notes of the Advisory Committee on Federal Rules of Evidence for Rule 404 indicate that where character evidence is offered for a purpose other than showing actions consistent therewith, there is no “mechanical solution” for admitting or excluding the evidence. According to the Committee, the determination must be made “whether the danger of undue prejudice outweighs the probative value of the evidence,” a determination which lies squarely with the discretion of the trial court.”
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.