DeWitt v. Harris County’s Empirical Analysis
1995
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 149 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 157 later decisions — most recently January 2025 · most notably Joe v. Two Thirty Nine Joint Venture (2004), Texas Department of Transportation v. Able (2000)
1 federal appellate · 149 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, 14th District (Houston))
Relationships
Relies on City of Lancaster v. Chambers · University of Texas Medical Branch v. York · Kassen v. Hatley · City of Houston v. Kilburn · K.D.F. v. Rex
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 157 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) property damage, personal injury, and death proximately caused by the wrongful act or omission or the negligence of an employee acting within his scope of employment if: (A) the property damage, personal injury, or death arises from the operation or use of a motor-driven vehicle or motor-driven equipment; and (B) the employee would be personally hable to the claimant according to Texas law; and (2) personal injury and death so caused by a condition or use of tangible personal or real property if the governmental unit would, were it a private person, be hable to the claimant according to Texas law.”
11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[Sjubsection 2 is broader than subsection 1 in that it encompasses governmental liability based on respondeat superior for misuse of tangible personal property other than motor-driven vehicles and equipment. Subsection 2 is also broader because it encompasses governmental liability for a condition of real property or tangible personal property. Thus, in addition to liability based on principles of respondeat superior, subsection 2 includes governmental liability for premise defects.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“With premise defects, liability is predicated not upon the actions of the governmental unit’s employees but by reference to the duty of care owed by the governmental unit to the claimant for premise and special defects as specified in section 101.022 of the Texas Tort Claims Act.”
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.