131 W. Va. 391 - Cottrell v. Nurnberger’s Empirical Analysis
1948
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 34 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 45 later decisions — most recently November 2014 · most notably 183 W. Va. 291 - Shrewsbury v. Humphrey (1990), 137 W. Va. 561 - Janssen v. Carolina Lumber Co. (1952)
3 federal appellate · 34 state decisions
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 United States v. Cora Welch · Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line Co. v. State Highway Commission · Cook v. Stearns · Tallmadge v. . the East River Bank · Uhl v. Ohio River 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 45 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““ ... The mere failure or refusal of the vendor in an oral agreement, which is within the Statute of Frauds and for that reason unenforceable, to recognize it as binding or to comply with it does not in itself amount to fraud or inequitable conduct upon which to base estoppel, when, as here, it does not appear that he intended to violate the oral agreement when it was made. In refusing to perform it he is simply exercising a statutory right. The other party to the contract is presumed to know that the contract is unenforceable and that he acts under it at his risk. To regard otherwise the acts of the parties to a contract within the statute would be to disregard the statute and to refuse to give it force or effect.” Cottrell v. Nurnberger, supra at 406-07, 47 S.E.2d at 461-62 .”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“In the law of contracts a representation is ‘a statement express or implied made by one of two contracting parties to the other, before or at the time of making the contract, in regard to some past or existing fact, circumstance, or state of facts pertinent to the contract, which is influential in bringing about the agreement.’ Black’s Law Dictionary, 3rd ed., 1534. A promise is ‘a declaration, verbal or written, made by one person to another for a good or valuable consideration, in the nature of a covenant by which the promisor binds himself to do or forbear some act, and gives to the prom-isee a legal right to demand and enforce a fulfillment.’ Black’s Law Dictionary, 3rd ed., 1433.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[t]he Statute of Frauds is a time honored statute---- It was designed to prevent fraud and perjury in connection with the sale and the transfer of lands and other designated transactions. Though it may never be made the instrument of fraud which it was intended to prevent, it is just as ... important that it should not be ignored or circumvented in any set of circumstances which comes within its scope unless its application, in a particular instance, results in fraud or leads to inequitable conduct.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Best v. Edwards
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.