Rooney v. Sullivan’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 substantial question presented is whether in such eases the statute of limitations commences to run on this contract implied in law from the date of the termination of the services or from the death of the promisor. . . . Demartini v. Katz, supra, 49 Cal.App.2d 67 , did not consider this question, since we expressly held (p. 70) that as to the period 1910-1914 at which the services had been interrupted there was no evidence of an oral promise to compensate for those particular services by will. “Unless there is a prior repudiation of the promise to compensate by will of which the promisee has knowledge, in which event the statute might commence to run from the date of such repudiation (Maddox v. Rainoldi, 163 Cal.App.2d 384, 391 [ 329 P.2d 599 ]), logic compels the conclusion that no cause of action upon the contract implied in law arises until the death of the promisor without carrying out the express promise to compensate by will, since it is the failure of the promisor to carry out the express promise which gives rise to the implied promise to pay the reasonable value. . . .””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Vito v. McDonald