Wicks v. Comves’s Empirical Analysis
1920
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 21 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 23 later decisions — most recently February 2004
2 federal appellate · 21 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
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 23 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the ordinance, as then in force, made it impossible for the fruit stand to remain on the outside or to project over or to occupy the sidewalk; and hence from the instant the contract was executed the obligation of the lessor was to allow the removal of the stands and fixtures and to furnish inside space, and the obligation of the lessee was to pay the stipulated rent for the inside space. The contract did not contemplate the doing of anything violative of law, but it did show upon its face that it provided for the doing of only that which was lawful, because something else, which was mutually more beneficial and desirable, could not be legally done. In short, the language of the parties evidences a renting of inside space, inasmuch as the ordinance prevented the use of sidewalk space.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“well settled that where a party has contracted to perform anything, and an illegal act is included therein, that he shall nevertheless be held to perform so much of his contract as it is lawful to perform, if it can be separated from that part which is illegal.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.