Tapia v. McKenzie’s Empirical Analysis
1971
Citation profile
28 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 28 later decisions — most recently January 2013 · most notably Smith v. Klebanoff (1972), Phifer v. Herbert (1993)
28 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 Leet v. Union Pacific Railroad · Cervantes v. Forbis · Coca v. Arceo · Agnew v. Libby · Buchanan v. Downing
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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In a specially concurring opinion, I said: Summary judgment is a dangerous instrument in the administration of justice when it denies a party the right to trial based upon factual issues. The obvious purpose of the rule from its origin in New Mexico in 1949, was to hasten the administration of justice and to expedite litigation by avoiding needless trials. Agnew v. Libby, 53 N.M. 56 , 201 P.2d 775 (1949). This has not proven true in actual experience. The history of Rule 56(c) in New Mexico indicates that summary judgment does not hasten the administration of justice; that trial courts decide issues and grant summary judgments which, they believe, avoids a large trial docket. In the vast majority of summary judgments appealed, reversals occurred, and trial denied was trial delayed. It is the policy of courts of review to grant the right of trial whenever justice demands it. Trial courts must find a legal rather than a factual issue upon which to grant summary judgment.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage““The factual basis necessary as a premise for application of res ipsa loquitur requires proof that (1) plaintiff’s injury was proximately caused by an agency or instrumentality under the exclusive control of the defendant; and (2) the incident causing the injury is of the kind which ordinarily does not occur in the absence of negligence by the person having control of the instrumentality.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage“In jury trials, reasonable minds are a cross-section of a community called for jury service. Each trial judge believes he has a reasonable mind, and knows what reasonable minds are, but he cannot know whether reasonable minds will differ. Where an issue of negligence is involved, ordinarily the trial court should allow a jury to determine whether “reasonable minds” can differ.”
1 later decision 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.