Yard v. Gibbons’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 21 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 22 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““It is contended that the mother of the plaintiff was erroneously permitted to give testimony of an expert character. Most of her testimony related to what was said and done by the defendant while attending the plaintiff, and about which any one cognizant of the facts might testify. She did state that early in the evening, a considerable time before the child was born, she made an examination of her daughter and was able to feel the head of the child, and stated that ‘It was not down much.’ This was as close as she came to giving testimony of an expert character, and it is easy to see that, however it may be viewed, it could not have been prejudicial error. Ordinarily only physicians and surgeons of special skill and experience are competent to testify whether a surgical operation has been performed or a patient treated with a reasonable degree of skill and care, but testimony as to many things connected with a case of this kind, such as the acts and statements of the physician or surgeon as well as the external appearances and manifest conditions observable by any one, may be given by non-expert witnesses. (Sly v. Powell, 87 Kan. 142 , 123 Pac. 881 .) Aside from that, the witness herself was the mother of five children. She had experience with other women in childbirth, and had been occasionally called to take care of them and nurse them. With this much experience there were certainly many things connected with midwifery about which she was qualified to testify.” (p. 808.)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Hiatt v. Groce