Garst v. Scott’s Empirical Analysis
1923
Citation profile
5 federal appellate · 8 district · 21 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 38 later decisions — most recently November 2004 · most notably Parsons Mobile Products., Inc. v. Remmert (1975), Colonial Laundries, Inc. v. Henry (1927)
5 federal appellate · 8 district · 21 state decisions — followed in 10 states
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.
Relationships
Relies on Empire Steam Laundry v. Lozier · Fulton Grand Laundry Co. v. Johnson · Morrison v. Woodbury
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 38 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"A person who leaves the employment of another has the right to take with him all the skill he has acquired, jail the knowledge that he has obtained, and all the information that he has received, so long as nothing is taken that is the property of the employer. Trade secrets are the property of the employer, and cannot be taken or used by the employee for his own benefit, but customers are not trade secrets. They are not property. The right to trade with them may be property, but that right was not interfered with by the defendant. Written lists of customers may be propery, but the defendant did not take any such list. Skill and knowledge acquired or information obtained cannot be left behind so long as those things exist within the mind of the employee. All that knowledge, skill, and information, except trade secrets, become a part of his equipment for the transaction of any business in which he may engage, just the same as any part of the skill, knowledge, information, or education that was received by him before entering upon the employment. Those things cannot be taken from him, although he may forego them, forget them, or abandon them.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““It is held in the majority of the cases which have passed on the question, that in the absence of an express pontract, on taking a new employment in a competing business, an employee may solicit for his new employer the business of his former customers, and will not be enjoined from so doing, at the instance of his former employer.””
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.