Watson v. White’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 federal appellate · 33 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 37 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““By the terms of the agreement here in question time was made of the essence of the contract. It was not only provided therein that if the purchaser should fail to perform the contract promptly on his part, at the time and in the manner therein specified, then that ‘the earnest money paid as above’ — i. e., the $500 first paid by White, — should, at the option of the vendor, be forfeited as liquidated damages and the contract become null and void, but it was also expressly stipulated, ‘time is of the essence of this contract and of all the conditions thereof. ’ But an agreement that time shall be of the essence of a contract may be waived or set aside, and more especially so in the contemplation of a court of chancery, either by the mutual consent or conduct of the parties, or by the consent or conduct of the party in whose favor and for whose benefit such stipulation is made. (Allen v. Woodruff, 96 Ill. 11 ; Palmer v. Ford, 70 id. 369; Peck v. Brighton Co., 69 id. 200; Morgan v. Herrick, 21 id. 481; Bishop v. Newton, 20 id. 175.) In the case at bar, both parties, by tacit but mutual consent, seem to have waived and ignored, from the very start, the provision that time should be of the essence of the contract and of all the conditions, stipulations or specified terms thereof.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 265 Ill. App. 554 - Strey v. Buehl