O'Brien v. King’s Empirical Analysis
1917
Citation profile
40 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 48 later decisions — most recently September 2012 · most notably Comunale v. Traders & General Insurance (1958), 1 Cal. 3d 586 - United States Liability Insurance v. Haidinger-Hayes, Inc. (1970)
40 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 Lattin v. Gillette · Long v. Straus · Thomas v. Pacific Beach Co. · Chipman v. Morill & Webster · McCarthy v. Mount Tecarte Land & Water Co.
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.
““The theory of these cases was that the paper, in each instance, acknowledged the existence of facts necessarily and directly importing the obligation which was made the basis of suit, and this was held to be sufficient. (See, also, Sannickson v. Brown, 5 Cal. 57 ; Ashley v. Vischer, 24 Cal. 322 [85 Am.Dec. 65].) “None of the cases decided in this state, and cited above, will be found to conflict with this view. They all had to do with writings which did not, in and of themselves, express the obligation sued upon, or a state of facts from which such obligation necessarily and directly flowed. In each instance, the obligation could be established only by evidence of facts and occurrences outside of those appearing on the face of the instrument.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage“promises 'merely implied by law' from a situation evidenced by a writing, i.e., quasi contracts, are not within the statutory provision under discussion. The promise must be one arising directly from the writing itself, and included in its terms. But in determining whether the obligation is 'supported by an express promise or stipulation in the written instrument,' we must regard, as included in the terms of the writing, all obligations and promises which its words necessarily import.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“The reasonable--indeed, the only reasonable--meaning of these words is that the money was received as a loan at the specified interest rate. A loan being established by the writing, a promise to repay is implied by necessary inference of law and fact. Such promise is embodied in the language of the writing, although not expressed in the words 'I promise to pay.'”
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.