Reid v. Burns’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

15 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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The rescission, cancellation, or delivery up of agreements, securities, or deeds, is said to be one of the heads of equity jurisdiction indispensable to reciprocal justice. It is the converse of a specific performance. .The ground for the equitable relief, in either case, is the same. The equity arises from the fraud which the circumstances of the case show would be perpetrated, but for such interposition of the court, upon the party asking-such relief. In neither case can the relief be claimed by the party as his strict right; but in both cases, an application for specific performance, and an application for a rescission of a contract, or 'reconveyance of lands, securities, etc., the relief asked is granted or refused by a court of equity upon its own conclusions, from all the attending circumstances, that the relief is or is not just and reasonable in the particular case. It is said, too, that the plaintiff will be expected, in a court of equity, in such eases, to show himself entitled to relief beyond a mere technical breach of duty. The court will also, in some cases, order an indenture to be canceled or annulled, on the application of one party, when it would refuse similar relief on the application of another, — showing very clearly that the court, in such cases, has an ample discretion. And still the discretion exercised upon such applications by courts of equity is not an arbitrary discretion; but it is said to be ' a sound and reasonable discretion, and regulated up”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Capps v. Clark