Ingram v. Harris’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

14 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 14 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “A new promise, made before a debt is barred by the statute of limitations, is held not to create a new and substantive contract, but to be merely evidence of an existing liability and to fix a new date from which the statute runs .... [A]n acknowledgment or new promise fixes a point of time from which limitations begin to run anew. If such acknowledgment or promise is made before the bar of the statute has become complete, it starts the statute anew from the date of the promise or acknowledgment and against the original claim .... [U]nless the new promise amounts to a novation of the debt, the limitation on the new promise will be the same as on the old in the absence of language in the statute showing a different intent.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Papula v. Otto

2. “[w]hile in the construction of statutes the constant endeavor of the courts is to ascertain and give effect to the intention of the legislature, that intention must be gathered from the words used, unless a literal construction would involve a manifest absurdity.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Hagan v. Antonio