162 Ill. App. 3d 774 - Phillips v. Britton’s Empirical Analysis
1987
Citation profile
16 federal appellate · 20 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 48 later decisions — most recently October 2025 · most notably 289 Ill. App. 3d 544 - Doherty v. Kahn (1997), Bower v. Jones (1992)
16 federal appellate · 20 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 Goldstick v. ICM Realty · 132 Ill. App. 3d 408 - Ford v. City of Chicago · 154 Ill. App. 3d 438 - Alguire v. Walker · 119 Ill. App. 2d 390 - Brunette v. Vulcan Materials Co. · 14 Ill. 2d 526 - Anastaplo v. Radford
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 48 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"Before a court may exercise that discretion in favor of granting the remedy in the case of an oral contract which would normally be unenforceable under the Statute of Frauds, the court must find that the terms of the contract are clear, definite, and unequivocal [citations], that the contract has been at least partially performed by the party seeking the remedy [citations] and that the acts allegedly done in performance are positively attributable exclusively to the contract [citations]." Intini v. Marino (1983), 112 Ill.App.3d 252, 256 , 68 Ill.Dec. 12 , 445 N.E.2d 460 , quoting Blaise v. Stein (1979), 75 Ill.App.3d 793, 796 , 31 Ill.Dec. 634 , 394 N.E.2d 836 .”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““ ‘Promissory estoppel is an equitable device invoked to prevent a person from being injured by a change in position made in reasonable reliance on another’s conduct. [Citation.] It is a doctrine under which a plaintiff may recover without the presence of a contract, and the courts have permitted suit on this theory in the absence of a contract. [Citation.] To recover under this doctrine, the following elements must be met: (1) a promise, (2) which the promisor should reasonably expect to induce action or forbearance of a definite and substantial character on the part of the promisee, (3) which induces such action or forbearance, and (4) which must be enforced in order to avoid injustice.’ ” (Phillips v. Britton (1987), 162 Ill. App. 3d 774, 785 , 516 N.E.2d 692, 700 , quoting Lawrence v. Board of Education (1987), 152 Ill. App. 3d 187, 201 , 503 N.E.2d 1201,1210 .)”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]he promise which the Phillipses contend to have made in this case, however, is the same as the agreement underlying their claim for breach of contract, and the evidence adduced by them with respect to each is identical . . . [and] just as we believe that the trial court could have found that the terms of the agreement were not clear, definite and unequivocal, we therefore likewise believe that it could have determined that the promise was not unambiguous”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.