Smith v. Melson, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis
1983
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 8 district · 62 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 84 later decisions — most recently October 2024 · most notably Darner Motor Sales, Inc. v. Universal Underwriters Insurance (1984), Taylor v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance (1993)
6 federal appellate · 8 district · 62 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 Shattuck v. Precision-Toyota, Inc. · Kintner v. Wolfe · Giovanelli v. First Federal Savings & Loan Ass'n · Ness v. Greater Arizona Realty, Inc. · 9 Ariz. App. 529 - Owen v. Mecham
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 84 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]he purpose of an agreement is to be divined from the entire instrument and the surrounding circumstances and not from the label the parties attach to it.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“contract should be read in light of the parties' intentions as reflected by their language and in view of all the circumstances.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“The construction of a contract is a question of law where the terms of the agreement are clear and unambiguous.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.