presumption
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 219 U.S. 35 - Mobile Jackson Kansas City Railroad Company v. J a Turnipseed · 1910Most cited · 831 citing opinions
rule of evidence
Legislation providing that proof of one fact shall constitute prima facie evidence of the main fact in issue is but to enact a rule of evidence, and quite within the general power of government.
How the Supreme Court has restated “presumption”
Each Supreme Court definition of “presumption,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “presumption”
Court decisions citing the 7 opinions that defined “presumption” — 3,257 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 7 definitions, chronological · 1870–1941
- ORIGINAL
A presumption is an inference as to the existence of a fact not actually known, arising from its usual connection with another which is known
A presumption upon a matter of fact, when it is not merely a disguise for some other principle, means that common experience shows the fact to be so generally true that courts may notice the truth.
function
there are presumptions that are not evidence in a proper sense but simply regulations of the burden of proof
Once the employer has carried his burden by offering testimony sufficient to justify a finding of suicide, the presumption falls out of the case. It never had and cannot acquire the attribute of evidence in the claimant's favor. Its only office is to control the result where there is an entire lack of competent evidence.
the presumption, i.e., the applicable rule of law, required the inference of death by accident rather than by suicide. The presumption is not evidence and may not be given weight as evidence.
it does no more than require the bailee, if he would avoid the inference, to go forward with evidence sufficient to persuade that the non-existence of the fact, which would otherwise be inferred, is as probable as its existence. It does not cause the burden of proof to shift
burden of proof