Williams v. Green’s Empirical Analysis
1854
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 16 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 18 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 1999
1 federal appellate · 16 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 Jacobs v. Peterborough & Shirley Railroad · White v. Dingley · Smith v. Smith · Tingley v. Cutler · Knapp v. Maltby
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 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““But contracts for stipulated damages are narrowly watched, because of the facility they may afford of being used as a cover for penalties in disguise. One of the inflexible rules of law on this subject is, that whenever the sum agreed to be paid, though expressed as stipulated damages, is in lieu of the non-payment of a lesser sum, certain or capable of being ascertained from the terms of the contract, it is construed to be a penalty. Besides violating the usury laws, such a contract could not be enforced, as stipulated damages, because it would become a mere subterfuge and evasion of the equitable doctrine of relieving against bonds with a penalty, conditioned for the payment of money.... Though the creditor, where a high standard of commercial integrity prevails, may be ruined by his debtor’s want of punctuality, the law has fixed a certain rate of interest as a compensation for the use of money. This principle distinctly stated in Orr vs. Churchil, 1 Hen. Black., pervades all the cases.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.