Dingley v. Oler’s Empirical Analysis
117 U.S. 490 · 1886
Citation profile
84 federal appellate · 16 district · 76 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 268 later decisions (12 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2017 · most notably Roehm v. Horst (1900), Central Trust Co. v. Chicago Auditorium Ass'n (1916)
84 federal appellate · 16 district · 76 state decisions — followed in 24 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 Smoot's Case · Swain v. Seamens · Daniels v. Newton · Wheeler v. New Brunswick & Canada Railroad
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 268 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“a mere assertion that the party will be unable, or will refuse to perform his contract, is not sufficient; it must be a distinct unequivocal absolute refusal to perform the promise, and must be treated and acted upon as such by the party to whom the promise was made....”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“a positive, unconditional, and unequivocal declaration of fixed purpose not to perform the contract in any event or at any time.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“Although in this extract they decline to ship the ice that season, it is accompanied with the expression of an alternative intention, and that is, to ship it, as must be understood, during that season, if and when the market price should reach the point which, in their opinion, the plaintiffs ought to be willing to accept as its fair price between them. It was not intended, we think, as a final and absolute declaration that the contract must be regarded as altogether off, so far as their performance was concerned, and it was not so treated by the plaintiffs. * * * 16 "This, we think, is very far from being a positive, unconditional, and unequivocal declaration of fixed purpose not to perform the contract in any event or at any time.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.