Brewer v. Mattern’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 district · 24 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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “‘The damages, therefore, must be so excessive as to strike mankind, at first blush, as being, beyond all measure, unreasonable and outrageous, and such as manifestly show the jury to have been actuated by passion, partiality, prejudice or corruption. In short, the damages must be flagrantly outrageous and extravagant, or the court cannot undertake to draw the line; for they have no standard by which to ascertain the excess.’”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Klug v. Keller Industries, Inc. · Stormo v. Strong

2. “The trial judge in passing upon the reasonableness of the jury verdict has had the benefit of not only hearing and observing the same things as the jury, but also has had the opportunity to observe the jury itself for signs of passion and prejudice, in addition to considering the amount of the verdict. Weidner v. Lineback, 82 S.D. 8 , 140 N.W.2d 597 . 85 S.D. at 366 , 182 N.W.2d at 333 .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Krumm v. Feuerhelm

3. “[T]he question for this court always is, is the evidence such that a jury might find that to the ordinary mind it must have been apparent that the described conduct would in all probability (as distinguished from possibility) produce the precise result which it did produce and would bring harm to the plaintiff.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Lukens v. Zavadil