Bailey v. Henry’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

9 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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The word “sale” in our statute of frauds (section 3142, Shannon’s Code 9 ) means alienation, and an action on a parol contract made by the owner binding him to give or donate land to another, would, we think, fall within the terms of that statute. A contrary holding would open a wide door to perjury and fraud, and defeat, as we think, one of the purposes of the statute. [[Image here]] Plaintiff insists that a parol donee of land does not, in legal contemplation, stand upon a parity with a parol vendee.... We cannot assent to this proposition. ... At common law the word “purchase” in its largest and most extensive sense is defined by Littleton to be the possession of lands and tenements which a man hath as by his own act or agreement, and not by descent by any of his ancestors or kindred. In this sense it is contradistinguished from acquisition by right of blood, and includes every other method of coming to an estate but merely that of inheritance, wherein the title is vested in a person, not by his own act or agreement, but by the single operation of law. And says Mr. Blackstone: “Purchase, indeed, in its vulgar and confined acceptation, is applied only to such acquisitions of land as are to be obtained by way of bargain and sale for money, or some other valuable consideration; but this falls far short of the legal idea of purchase, for if I give land freely to another, he is in the eyes of the law a purchaser, and falls within Littleton’s definition, for he comes to the esta”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Earline Waddle v. Lorene B. Elrod