Jackson County Gin Co. v. McQuistion’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 15 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 19 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “`The general rule that parol evidence is not admissible to contradict or vary the terms of a written contract is neither invariable nor inflexible but adapts itself to the manifold and shifting exigencies of human affairs. . . . The law takes into consideration the fact that most agreements are drawn up by unskilled persons, ignorant of the legal rules of construction, who very frequently do not embody the entire agreement, or else express it vaguely or ambiguously; and the fact that, even where agreements are drawn up by legal experts, the same faults and defects are attributable, sometimes from insufficient instructions from the client, sometimes from error of the counsel himself. A great deal of judicial leniency should be and is extended to uninstructed persons, where experience has demonstrated that some of the wisest lawyers who have ever lived have not known enough law to draw their own wills. . . . The body of the exceptional law that thus sprung up is much larger than that of the corroborative law.' Browne on Parol Evidence, 2.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Watson v. Clayton

2. “"While parol evidence is not admissible to vary the terms of a written contract, it is admissible to show what the parties intended to express by the language adopted. ’ ’”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Westinghouse Credit Corp. v. First Nat'l Bank