Schmand v. Jandorf’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 5 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 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Contracts are frequently the subject of litigation in which the promisor agrees to pay for work or goods provided he is satisfied with them. The cases of this character may conveniently be put under two heads: (1) Where the fancy, taste, sensibility, or judgment of the promisor are involved; and (2) where the question is merely one of operative fitness or mechanical utility. “Gases of Fancy, Taste, or Judgment. — The personal thread which runs through agreements of this class has caused a unanimity of judicial opinion that here at least the promisee is practically debarred from questioning the ground of decision on the part of the promisor or investigating its propriety. The courts refuse to say that where a man agrees to pay if he is satisfied with a thing of this kind he can be compelled to pay on proof that some one else is satisfied with it. They recognize that in matters of fancy, taste, or judgment there is no absolute standard as to what is good or bad, and leave each man free to act on his ideas or prejudices as the case may be. Hence we find that where the subject-matter of the contract was a suit of clothes, a bust of the defendant’s husband, a portrait of the defendant’s daughter, a cabinet organ, a set of artificial teeth, a carriage, a steam heater for a house, a play to be written by an author for an actor, a literary or scientific article for an encyclopedia, a design for a bank note, and horses, it has been held that the question was not one for court or jury”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. American Music Stores v. Kussel

2. ““Here the contract contained independent provisions. It is clear and explicit in its terms. Had it been the intention that the contract should continue, in case plaintiff should 'perform all of his duties as a candy maker and shall serve said first party diligently and according to his best ability in all respects,’ it would have been quite unnecessary to have added the clause as to the satisfaction of the defendant, and it would then have been a question for a jury whether plaintiff had performed lus contract or not. To give the ‘satisfaction’ clause any force, it must refer to the mental condition of. the defendant, and not to the mental condition of a court or jury. We think that the construction of the contract by the circuit judge was the correct one. Whatever of apparent hardship there may be in such a contract, it was one of tlie parties’ own making. As was said by Justice Steere in the Isbell Case ( 170 Mich. 304 , 136 N. W. 457 ]: ‘If parties voluntarily assume the obligations and hazards of a satisfaction contract, their legal rights are to be determined and adjudicated according to its provisions. It is elementary that courts cannot make contracts for parties, nor relieve them of the consequences of their contracts, however ill-advised.’ ””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. American Music Stores v. Kussel

3. “for the period of one year ... subject ... to the satisfaction”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Diggs v. Pepsi-Cola Metropolitan Bottling Co.