Hall v. Finn’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The parties themselves fixed and determined their rights, when they appended their signatures to the undisputed agreement. That agreement is not elastic; it is decisive. The rights of the parties to it still are what they then and there declared them to be: nothing more; nothing less. Equity has no power to change, alter, amend or vary the terms of that, their instrument, which is essentially legal and conceded to plainly and certainly express the views and ideas of its authors or makers. Equity cannot make an agreement for them, nor can it substitute their agreement with another; it cannot read into it, a plan not contemplated by the parties to it. Each party to the agreement evidenced his approval and consent to it with his signature. That approval or consent is an -act of reason accompanied with deliberation, the mind weighing as in a balance, the good and evil on each side; and equity assumes when competent and informed men state it, they mean just what they say.” Hall v. Finn, 116 N. J. Eq. 34, 88; affirmed, 119 N. J. Eq. 165. See, also, Driver v. Smith, 89 N. J. Eq. 339, 359.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 127 N.J. Eq. 535 - J. I. Kislak, Inc. v. Coffin