Exxon Corp. v. Tidwell’s Empirical Analysis
1993
Citation profile
5 federal appellate · 110 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 125 later decisions — most recently April 2019 · most notably Transportation Insurance Co. v. Moriel (1994), Centeq Realty, Inc. v. Siegler (1995)
5 federal appellate · 110 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedthe decision below (from Texas Court of Appeals, 5th District (Dallas))
Relationships
Relies on Nixon v. Mr. Property Management Co. · Garza v. Alviar · El Chico Corp. v. Poole · Farley v. MM Cattle Company · Redinger v. Living, Inc.
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 125 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“duty to protect invitees on the premises from criminal acts of third parties if the landowner knows or has reason to know of an unreasonable risk of harm to the invitee. [Nixon, 690 S.W.2d at 550 .] This duty developed out of the premise that the party with the ‘power of control or expulsion’ is in the best position to protect against the harm, and when that party ‘by reason of location, mode of doing business, or observation or past experience, should reasonably anticipate criminal conduct on the part of third persons, ... (that party) has a duty to take precautions against it.’ Morris v. Barnette, 553 S.W.2d 648, 649-50 (Tex.Civ.App.—Texarkana 1977, writ ref'd n.r.e.).”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]he nature of the matters to which the right of control extends [is] determinative. We think that in a case alleging negligence in maintaining a safe workplace, the court’s inquiry must focus on who had specific control over the safety and security of the premises, rather than the more general right of control over operations. Issues concerning control over operations ... obscure the true inquiry. The focus should be on whether Exxon had the right to control the alleged security defects that led to Tid-well’s injury. If Exxon did not have any right to control the security of the station, it cannot have had any duty to provide the same. If Exxon had such a right of control, on the other hand, its conduct may be found to have contributed to Tidwell’s injury. Applying the traditional test of right of control over general operations simply does not answer this question. It requires a factfin-der to surmise a general right of control from factors unrelated to safety, and then to infer from that general control a right of control over the safety conditions that are the real issue in the case.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[o]ne who controls [a] premises ... [has] a duty to use ordinary care to protect invitees from criminal acts of third parties if he knows or has reason to know of an unreasonable and foreseeable risk of harm to the invitee.”
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.