Cook v. Holcomb’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Each of these cases which required an election [between inconsistent theories] involved a submission of humanitarian negligence coupled with a conflicting submission of primary negligence. So far as is disclosed in the opinions, none involved submission in separate or alternative counts. In addition it appears that in each instance the plaintiff was seeking to have the jury draw diametrically opposite inferences from a single set of facts. Similarly, in Wallace v. Bounds, [ 369 S.W.2d 138, 141 (Mo.1963) ], the plaintiff was required to elect which statutory cause of action, personal injury or wrongful death, would be submitted to the jury where the evidence proffered to support both theories was the same and the causes of action were mutually exclusive. “In contrast, where there is independent and conflicting evidence to support either of two factual scenarios which would make a submissible case or defense but could not both be true, the cases have routinely approved submission of both theories in the disjunctive. In Piggs [Pigg] v. Bridges, 352 S.W.2d 28 (Mo.banc 1961), for example, the court affirmed the grant of a new trial in an action for personal injuries resulting from a fall down a dimly lit flight of stairs because the defendant’s submission of a contributory negligence instruction which submitted that the plaintiff could have discovered the stairway and at the same time he could not have discovered the stairway. Although the conjunctive submission of the contradict”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Butts v. Express Personnel Services