Steen v. Rustad’s Empirical Analysis
1957
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 4 district · 63 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 75 later decisions — most recently October 2025 · most notably Rumph v. Dale Edwards, Inc. (1979), City of Austin Texas v. Decker Coal Company (1983)
2 federal appellate · 4 district · 63 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 Trotter v. Lewis · Slade v. City of Lexington · Edwards v. Tobin · McLaren Gold Mines Co. v. Morton · Johnson v. Elliot
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 75 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[A] court, in interpreting a written instrument, will not isolate certain phrases of that instrument in order to garner the intent of the parties.”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage““It is equally well-settled that absolute certainty and completeness in every detail is not a prerequisite of a specific performance, only reasonable certainty and completeness being required. Those matters which are merely subsidiary, collateral, or which go to the performance of the contract are not essential, and therefore need not be expressed in the informal agreement.””
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“In the event “Plan No. 2” is chosen by tenant, tenant shall notify landlord prior to said date of this choice, and such payment shall then constitute rental of the land for year 1951, and further, shall constitute a down payment upon a contract for sale of said land____Landlord agrees to sell and tenant agrees to buy the land hereinbefore described for the sum of $8,500.00.... The foregoing paragraph shall constitute the minimum provisions under which tenant may exercise his option to buy____ It is Further Understood and Agreed, that in the event that the tenant is called into the military services [by] the United States before he exercises his option to buy, then the tenant cannot exercise said option and the landlord shall not be bound by tenant’s option to buy.”
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.