Walden v. Skinner’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

58 federal appellate · 7 district · 42 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 193 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Decisions of undoubted authority hold that where an instrument is drawn and executed that professes or is intended to carry into execution an agreement, which is in writing or by parol, previously made between the parties, but which by mistake of the draftsman, either as to fact or law, does not fulfill, or which violates, the manifest intention of the parties to the agreement, equity will correct the mistake, so as to produce a conformity of the instrument to the agreement; the reason of the rule being that the execution ■of agreements fairly and legally made is one of the peculiar branches of equity jurisdiction, and, if the instrument intended to execute the agreement be from any cause insufficient for that purpose, the agreement remains as much unexecuted as if the party had refused altogether to comply with his agreement, and a court of equity will, in. the exercise of its acknowledged jurisdiction, afford relief in the one case, as well as in the other, by compelling the delinquent party to perform his undertaking according to the terms of it and the manifest intention of the parties. Hunt v. Rousmanier’s Adm’rs, 1 Pet. 1 , 13 [ 7 L. Ed. 27 ]; Id., 8 Wheat. 174 , 211 [ 5 L. Ed. 589 ]. Even a judgment, when confessed, if the agreement was made under a clear mistake, will be set aside, if application be made and the mistake shown while the judgment is within the power of the court. Such an agreement, even when made a rule of court, will not be enforced, if made under a m”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Carrell v. McMurray · Medical Society of South Carolina v. Gilbreth

2. “It is practically a universal rule that in suits to reform written instruments on the ground of fraud or mutual mistake, parol evidence is admissible to establish the fact of fraud or of a mistake and in what it consisted, and to show how the writing should be corrected in order to conform to the agreement or intention which the parties actually made or had, and this, even though the instrument in question is within the statute of frauds. * * * Evidence of fraud or mistake is seldom found in the instrument itself, and unless parol evidence may be admitted for the purpose of procuring its reformation, the aggrieved party would have as little hope of redress in a court of equity as in a court of law. 25 "Generally, it may be said that any testimony which tends to prove the mistake alleged or the intention of the parties is admissible.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Raine-Andrews Lumber Co. · Hyman Rosen and Harry Grossman v. Westinghouse Electric Supply Company, a Corporation

3. ““Cases arise in the federal courts in which nominal or even immaterial parties are joined, on the one side or the other, with those who have the requisite citizenship to give the court jurisdiction in the case; and where that is so the rale is settled that the mem fact that one or more of such parties reside in the same state with one of the actual parties to the controversy will not defeat the jurisdiction of the court. Decisive authority for that proposition is found in a recent ruling of Mr. Justice Miller, in which he states to the effect that mere formal parties do not oust the jurisdiction of the court, even if they are without the requisite citizenship, where it appears that the real controversy is between citizens of different states.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Deere, Wells & Co. v. Chicago, M. & St. P. Ry. Co.