Ybarra v. Spangard’s Empirical Analysis
1949
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 2 district · 21 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 31 later decisions — most recently October 1990 · most notably Wellman v. Faulkner (1983), 73 Wash. 2d 476 - Douglas v. Bussabarger (1968)
3 federal appellate · 2 district · 21 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.
Relationships
Relies on 25 Cal. 2d 486 - Ybarra v. Spangard · 33 Cal. 2d 80 - Summers v. Tice · 71 Cal. App. 2d 687 - Vaccarezza v. Sanguinetti · Barham v. Widing · 19 Cal. 2d 439 - Druzanich v. Criley
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 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"Defendants take the position that, ... there is no showing that the act of any particular defendant, nor any particular instrumentality, was the cause thereof. They attack plaintiff's action as an attempt to fix liability `en masse' on various defendants, some of whom were not responsible for the acts of others; and they further point to the failure to show which defendants had control of the instrumentalities that may have been involved. Their main defense may be briefly stated in two propositions: (1) that where there are several defendants, and there is a division of responsibility in the use of an instrumentality causing the injury, and the injury might have resulted from the separate act of either one of two or more persons, the rule of res ipsa loquitur cannot be invoked against any one of them; and (2) that where there are several instrumentalities, and no showing is made as to which caused the injury or as to the particular defendant in control of it, the doctrine cannot apply. We are satisfied, however, that these objections are not well taken in the circumstances of this case. "The doctrine of res ipsa loquitur has three conditions: `(1) the accident must be of a kind which ordinarily does not occur in the absence of someone's negligence; (2) it must be caused by an agency or instrumentality within the exclusive control of the defendant; (3) it must not have been due to any voluntary action or contribution on the part of the plaintiff.' (Prosser, Torts, p. 295.) It”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Nichols v. Nold
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.