Perdue v. Hughes’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 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 3 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Whatever the strict rule of the common law may have been in condemning contracts in restraint of trade, such doctrine is much modified in America, and is not ordinarily made to apply to the contracts of professional men, * * *. “We see no reason whatever to broadly hold such a contract void. It is a property right, personal in its nature, and should be left to the liberty and, freedom of contract. There is no such public policy involved in it as would require the physician to keep his good will for his own interest or restrain him from abandoning his practice and selling out his estate and good will together. Such a sale is contractual and thereby lawful. * * * * * * “An important question here for us to decide is on the validity of the contract, raised by appellant, to the effect that, because the agreement being without time limit, appellant contracted and bound himself never again to practice his profession within that territory, which rendered the contract a nullity as against public policy. “No authority is cited to sustain the contention that such an agreement never to practice his profession again in any given territory, or at all, is wholly void. * * * * * “If one has the right to make a contract binding himself not to practice his profession for a great number of years, •in a large or limited area, why not be allowed to make the same contract' permanent, or at least during the life of' the purchaser? What interest has the public in a professional man, that would den”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Krueger, Hutchinson & Overton Clinic v. Lewis