Jones v. Ray’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 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 7 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The severed causes must also not be so intertwined as to involve the same identical facts and issues. In his fourth amended petition, relator alleged a continuous course of treatment constituting one continuous transaction, jointly producing an indivisible injury. Accordingly, the damages, if any, suffered by Jones from the acts relator alleges in the severed claims, necessarily relate to and are intertwined with the damages he suffered from the alleged acts of the Harris County defendants. At a single trial of all claims, the finder of fact will be asked, for each entity concerning which there is evidence of some responsibility for Jones’s injuries, to assign a percentage of that responsibility; the percentage the finder of fact assigns to each such entity will necessarily affect, and be affected by, the percentage of responsibility it assigns to each of the other such entities. If the severance order were allowed to stand, and the case were to proceed as two separate suits, then that relationship would hold true only in the abstract, and not in practice. The severance of the claims into two separate suits would not, of itself, preclude each set of defendants from presenting evidence that the defendants on trial in the other suit were responsible for Jones’s injuries. In each of those suits, the facts and issues relating to each particular entity’s liability for Jones’s injuries would be the same. Additionally, the respective triers of fact could each find that Jones had bee”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. In Re Liu

2. “Relator has a substantial right to present the complete set of intertwined facts and issues germane to his claims, to one factfinder, in one proceeding, rather than in two separate suits that are all but foreordained to generate, collectively, a decision destined to fail in the appellate process. The denial of that right would introduce the “empty chair defense,” and thereby skew the progress and entire conduct of the proceedings-with the resultant potential to affect the outcome of the litigation profoundly, and to compromise the presentation of the parties’ respective claims or defenses in ways unlikely to be apparent in the appellate record.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. In Re Arthur Andersen LLP

3. “Misjoinder of parties is not ground for dismissal of an action. Parties may be dropped or added, or suits filed separately may be consolidated, or actions which have been improperly joined may be severed and each ground of recovery improperly joined may be docketed as a separate suit between the same parties, by order of the court on motion of any party or on its own initiative at any stage of the action, before the time of submission to the jury or to the court if trial is without a jury, on such terms as are just. Any claim against a party may be severed and proceeded with separately-”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. In re Burgett