Owens v. McNally’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 federal appellate · 4 district · 135 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 149 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““A specific performance of this contract cannot, therefore, be decreed without sweeping aside, as of no moment or avail, the rights of the wife and widow, vested under a contract most strongly favored by the law. Specific performance, as we have said, is not to be decreed under strict rule and formula. Every consideration which may properly be urged upon the court is to be weighed and passed upon, and it will be decreed only when no other adequate relief is available to plaintiff, and even then it will be denied if it operates by way of a hardship upon the innocent. So, while this contract was not void, as against public policy, at the time it was entered into, it must be held that the parties to it contracted in view of the fact that a subsequent marriage by Lawrence McNally might be consummated, and that the effect of this marriage would be to compel a court of equity, in justice to the widow or children, to deny specific performance. Or, viewed in another way, it must have been within the contemplation of the parties that Lawrence McNally might marry; for the contract could not have been designed as a restraint upon his marriage, or it would be void. If it was within their contemplation, and the contract embraced the taking of the deceased’s entire estate to the exclusion of any future wife or child, then we have no hesitation in saying that the contract was void as against public policy. The only permissible conclusion is, therefore, that the parties contracted in contemp”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Wides v. Wides' Ex'r

2. “[Defendant widow] acquired distinct rights of heirship and succession. There might have been children born of the marriage with similar rights. It is true that these rights vested after the contract was made, but where a bill is brought for the specific performance of a contract, the after-acquired rights of third parties are equitable considerations to be regarded in adjudicating the questions.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 40 Wash. App. 184 - McKinnon v. White