last clear chance
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 275 U.S. 236 - Kansas City Southern Railway Co. v. Ellzey · 1927Most cited · 20 citing opinions
a negligent defendant will be held liable to a negligent plaintiff if the defendant, aware of the plaintiff's peril or unaware of it only through carelessness, had in fact a later opportunity than the plaintiff to avert an accident
How often courts cite the case defining “last clear chance”
Court decisions citing the opinion that defined “last clear chance” — 79 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining case 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.