Case Citator › General Motors Corp. v. Hopkins

General Motors Corp. v. Hopkins

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Overruled in part
Court
Supreme Court of Texas
Citation
548 S.W.2d 344
Decided
Confirmed treatments
2
Flagged citations read
28 of 28
Citing cases (total)
28
Treatment dates
1979–1984
Overruled in part
A reviewed court has overruled part of this case’s holding. General Motors Corp. v. Hopkins was overruled in part on two products liability rules. The Texas Supreme Court replaced its design defect jury instruction in Turner v. General Motors Corp. and later absorbed its separate product misuse defense into a broader comparative causation system in Duncan v. Cessna Aircraft Co. Its discussions of circumstantial proof of a defect and other points continued to be cited.
More on how this was screened

All 28 flagged citations have been read; the two confirmed treatments are listed below.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

28 later cases cite General Motors Corp. v. Hopkins; 28 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on General Motors Corp. v. Hopkins?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Overruled in part

  • The Texas Supreme Court discarded the ordinary consumer and prudent manufacturer elements of Hopkins's design defect jury instruction.

    Turner v. General Motors Corp. · Supreme Court of Texas · filed

    Upon re-examination of these previous writings we have determined that henceforth in the trial of strict liability cases involving design defects the issue and accompanying instruction will not include either the element of the ordinary consumer or of the prudent manufacturer; to the extent of any conflict in such respects, Headers on and Hopkins are overruled.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

  • The Texas Supreme Court subsumed Hopkins's separate product misuse defense into comparative causation and overruled inconsistent parts of Hopkins.

    Duncan v. Cessna Aircraft Co. · Supreme Court of Texas · filed

    Assumption of risk and misuse will no longer be separate defenses, but will be subsumed under the more familiar notion of contributory negligence. Accordingly, to the extent that they are inconsistent with this opinion, Henderson v. Ford Motor Co., 519 S.W.2d 87 (Tex.1974) and General Motors Corp. v. Hopkins, 548 S.W.2d 344 (Tex.1977) are overruled.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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