Mays v. Barnett’s Empirical Analysis
1921
Citation profile
5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently June 1992
5 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 Arlington Hotel Co. v. Rector · Wood v. Kelsey · Brown & Hackney v. Daubs · Stoops v. Bank of Brinkley · Ellege v. Henderson
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 7 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Parol evidence to vary the terms of a written contract is one thing; such evidence to enable the court to say what the parties to a contract intended to express by the language adopted in making it is quite another thing. The former is not permissible. . . . The later is permissible, and is often absolutely essential to show the real nature of the agreement. . . . Both rules are elementary, and do not conflict in the slightest degree with each other. ... A failure to keep in mind the wide distinction between varying a contract by parol evidence and resorting to such evidence in aid of its construction often leads to error. [Emphasis added.]”
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.