Terry v. Bender’s Empirical Analysis
1956
Citation profile
110 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 112 later decisions — most recently April 2018 · most notably Ward v. Taggart (1959), 54 Cal. 2d 632 - Fifield Manor v. Finston (1960)
110 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 Meyer v. State Board of Equalization · 140 Cal. App. 2d 278 - Schaefer v. Berinstein · 35 Cal. 2d 713 - Steiner v. Rowley · Morgan Clark v. Millsap · 114 Cal. App. 2d 412 - People v. Darby
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 112 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A public office is a public trust created in the interest and for the benefit of the people. Public officers are obligated, virtute officii , to discharge their responsibilities with integrity and fidelity. Since the officers of a governmental body are trustees of the public weal, they may not exploit or prostitute their official position for their private benefits. When public officials are influenced in the performance of their public duties by base and improper considerations of personal advantage, they violate their oath of office and vitiate the trust reposed in them, and the public is injured by being deprived of their loyal and honest services. It is therefore the general policy of this state that public officers shall not have a personal interest in any contract made in their official capacity.... A transaction in which the prohibited interest of a public officer appears is held void both as repugnant to the public policy expressed in the statutes and because the interest of the officer interferes with the unfettered discharge of his duty to the public. The public officer's interest need not be a direct one, since the purpose of the statutes is also to remove all indirect influence of an interested officer as well as to discourage deliberate dishonesty. Statutes prohibiting such 'conflict of interest' by a public officer are strictly enforced.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“Statutes prohibiting personal interests of public officers in public contracts are strictly enforced. [Citation.] ... [¶] A person merely in an advisory position to a city is affected by the conflicts of interest rule. [Citation.] ... [The retained attorney] was an officer and agent of the city and as such was in a position to advise the city council as to what action should be taken relative to the property involved.”
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.