Johnson v. Johnson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

35 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 35 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The inquiry is thus narrowed to this: was the respondent, as a matter of law, guilty of contributory negligence in not continuously observing the automobile, which she saw a block distant when she entered upon the crossing, in order to avoid being run down by it? By an ordinance introduced by appellant, the pedestrian is given the right of way over street crossings. By another ordinance, introduced by respondent, automobiles are prohibited from traveling over street crossings in business districts at a rate of speed greater than eight miles an hour. . . . “If the burden is placed upon the pedestrian, who when starting across a well-lighted street at a crossing sees an automobile a full city block distant, to thereafter continuously look up and down the street to avoid being rim over on pain of being charged, as a matter of law, with contributory negligence, then the concession that, as a matter of law, the pedestrian has the right of way at such crossings is an empty fiction. No greater care than this constant observation could be required at any other place on the street. The term ‘right of way’ must have some bearing upon the relative rights, hence on the relative care required of the parties. If a pedestrian must exercise the same care of continuous observation at the crossings as in the middle of the block, in order to avoid the charge of contributory negligence when run down by a speeding automobile without sounding a warning, then he has no right of way, but enters upo”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Wappler v. Pacific Door & Manufacturing Co. · 32 Wash. 2d 490 - Wood v. Copeland Lumber Co.

2. ““While it is also true that there was nothing to prevent the respondent’s glancing in the direction of the automobile and governing her progress by its actual rather than its presumed movements, it is also true that there was nothing to prevent the driver from glancing in the direction of the crossing and seeing that the respondent was taking a straight course thereon unconscious of the dangerously rapid approach of the automobile, and governing his movements accordingly. ””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Kaufman v. Sickman

3. ““The inquiry is thus narrowed to this: was the respondent, as a matter of law, guilty of contributory negligence in not continuously observing the automobile, which she saw a block distant when she entered upon .the crossing, in order to avoid being run down by it?” •”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Kaufman v. Sickman