Thompson v. Commissioner’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

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. “The purpose of this rule is to prevent witnesses from tailoring their testimony to that of prior witnesses and to minimize altered, uncandid testimony. Miller v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 650 F.2d 1365, 1373 (5th Cir. 1981); Colorado National Bankshares, Inc. v. Commissioner, 92 T.C. 246 (1989). If a witness is permitted to hear or read the testimony of an opposing witness, the later witness can ascertain the precise points of difference between their testimonies and can shape his own testimony to the advantage of his side of the case. Weeks Dredging & Contracting, Inc. v. United States, 11 Cl. Ct. 37, 49 (1986). However, if a witness is permitted to hear or read the testimony of a witness on the same side, this will allow the later witness the opportunity to sharpen his testimony to correspond with the earlier testimony. Weeks Dredging & Contracting, Inc. v. United States, supra.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Smith v. Commissioner

2. “because of the extremely wide-ranging cross-examination of all of the witnesses by all of the counsel in this consolidated case, reading the full testimony of any of the witnesses would, in the Court's opinion, be entirely too revealing.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Thompson v. Commissioner

3. “in the sense of changing his story or changing facts.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Smith v. Commissioner