Roche v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1900
Citation profile
1 district · 59 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 60 later decisions — most recently April 1984 · most notably Elliott v. Kazajian (1926), Tristram's Landing, Inc. v. Wait (1975)
1 district · 59 state decisions — followed in 13 states
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 Kalley v. . Baker · Conkling v. Krakauer · Ward v. Cobb · Francis v. Baker · Rice v. Mayo
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 60 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Where the broker is employed to get a customer to buy and pay for his principal’s land, and it turns out that the customer is not able to pay for the land, it is settled that his inability to do so does not deprive the broker of his commission, provided the principal made a valid and binding agreement for the sale of the land with the customer produced by the broker. Ward v. Cobb, 148 Mass. 518 . Burnham v. Upton, 174 Mass. 408, 409 . The ground on which this is settled is that by entering into a valid contract with the customer produced by the broker the principal accepts the customer as able, ready and willing to buy the land and pay for it. In such a case the decision would have to be the other way were it not that, by entering into the contract with him the principal accepts the customer produced by the broker; what the broker is employed to do is to produce a customer who will buy and pay for his principal’s land. Fitzpatrick v. Gilson, ante, 477. If it turns out that the customer produced by the broker is not able to pay and does not pay for the land, the broker has not performed his duty and has not earned his commission; and it is only because the principal accepts the customer by entering into a valid contract wüth him, that it is held in cases like Ward v. Cobb that the broker has earned his commission. Coleman v. Meade, 13 Bush, 358 . Donohue v. Flanagan, 9 N.Y. Supp. 275 . Francis v. Baker, 45 Minn. 83 . Wray v. Carpenter, 16 Col. 271 . Lockwood v. Halsey, 41 Kan”
1 later decision quote this exact passage““1. He may examine the title of the customer, and accept him or not accept him on learning the result of the. examination; 2. He may enter into a contract with him, in which it is provided that his title shall be examined, and if it turns out that his title is not good the contract is at an end; or 3. He may enter into a binding contract with him for the conveyance of the land.””
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.