Brown v. Brown’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““A contract into which one party has been induced to enter by the fraud or false representation of the other is not void, but only voidable at the election of the defrauded party. He may, if he chooses, abide by the contract and hold the party guilty of the fraud to its performance. But he is at liberty to disaffirm and repudiate it, and if he seasonably elects so to do and takes the steps necessary to work a rescission, the contract is no longer binding, and he is remitted to the same position and legal rights which he held before the fraud was perpetrated. But he is not permitted to do both, and having once made his election, either to affirm the contract or to rescind it, he must abide by such election, and cannot afterward chang'e his position in that respect. “The authorities all agree that an election to rescind, if made at all, must be made within a reasonable time after the defrauded party has obtained knowledge of the fraud. As was said in Masson v. Bovet, 1 Denio, 69 : ‘A person who is induced to part with his property on a fraudulent contract may, on discovering the fraud, avoid the contract and claim a return of what has been advanced upon it. Fraud destroys the contract ab initio, and the fraudulent purchaser has no title. But if the party defrauded would disaffirm the contract, he must do so at the earliest practicable moment after the discovery of the fraud. That is the time to make his election, and it must be done promptly and unreservedly. He must not hesita”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Derdiger v. Thompson Ross & Co.