Lewis v. Fahn’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 20 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 27 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ ‘By many if not most of the modem authorities, however, the true doctrine of duress is held to be that a contract . . . obtained by so oppressing a person by threats regarding the safety or liberty of himself, or of his property, or of a member of his family, as to deprive him of the free exercise of his will and prevent the meeting of minds necessary to a valid contract, may be avoided on the ground of duress.... “There is no legal standard of resistance with which the person acted upon must comply at the peril of being remediless for a wrong done to him, and no general rule as to the sufficiency of facts to produce duress. The question in each case [is], Was the person so acted upon by threats of the person claiming the benefit of the contract, for the purpose of obtaining such contract, as to be bereft of the quality of mind essential to the making of a contract, and was the contract thereby obtained? Hence, under this theory duress is to be tested, not by the nature of the threats, but rather by the state of mind induced thereby in the victim. The means used to produce that condition, the age, sex, state of health, and mental characteristics of the alleged injured party, are all evidentiary, merely, of the ultimate fact in issue, of whether such person was bereft of the free exercise of his will power. Obviously what will accomplish this result cannot justly be tested by any other standard than that of the particular person acted upon. His resisting power, under all the”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 571 F. Supp. 596 - United States v. McBride · 57 Cal. App. 3d 736 - Gonzalez v. Gonzalez

2. ““ ‘... By many if not most of the modern authorities, however, the true doctrine of duress is held to be that a contract, deed, or any obligation obtained by so oppressing a person by threats regarding the safety or liberty of himself, or of his property, or of a member of his family, as to deprive him of the free exercise of his will and prevent the meeting of minds necessary to a valid contract, may be avoided on the ground of duress, whether the oppression causing the incompetence to act be produced by what was formerly deemed duress, and relievable at law as such, or wrongful compulsion remediable only by an appeal to a court of equity. < i i “ ‘There is no legal standard of resistance with which the person acted upon must comply at the peril of being remediless for a wrong done to him, and no general rule as to the sufficiency of facts to produce duress. The question in each case is, Was the person so acted upon by threats of the person claiming the benefit of the contract, for the purpose of obtaining such contract, as to be bereft of the quality of mind essential to the making of a contract, and was the contract thereby obtained?...’ ” (Pp. 418, 419.) At most, the facts alleged in the cross-complaint constituted misrepresentation and fraud. They did not amount to duress.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Balling v. Finch · 234 Cal. App. 2d 100 - Hayward Union High School District v. Madrid

3. ““ ‘Under the modern doctrine there is no standard of courage or firmness with which the victim of duress must comply at the risk of being without remedy; the question is merely whether the pressure applied did in fact so far affect the individual concerned as to deprive him of contractual volition; if it ■ did there is duress, if it did not there is none.’ ””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Furnish v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue · McIntosh v. McIntosh