Swift Co. v. . Tempelos’s Empirical Analysis
1919
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 1 district · 13 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 18 later decisions — most recently January 1997
1 federal appellate · 1 district · 13 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.
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 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The permission [in a contract] to use the building for ‘any mercantile purpose,’ granted pursuant to plaintiff’s application, does not authorize the use for a restaurant, which is not a mercantile purpose. The word ‘mercantile’ means ‘pertaining to merchants, or the business of merchants; having to do with trade, or the buying and selling of commodities; commerce.’ Webster. The business of keeping a restaurant is in no sense commerce. If a restaurant be a mercantile establishment, the term is equally applicable to taverns, boarding houses, and the like, which cannot be admitted. The point demands no further attention. Permission to use a building for ‘any commercial purpose’ does not authorize its use as a restaurant.” (p. 729.)”
1 later decision quote this exact passage““The question is whether the goods and fixtures used in a restaurant which is conducted on the ordinary plan is a ‘stock of merchandise’ within the words and meaning of the bulk-sales act. . . . We do not think they come within that designation. The bulk-sales act is in derogation of the common law and must be strictly construed. ... It is said that the word ‘merchandise’ is usually, if not almost universally, limited to things which are ordinarily bought and sold in the way of merchants, and as the subjects of commerce and traffic. Van Patten v. Leonard, 55 Iowa 520 ; Burwell’s Law Dictionary.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage““The word ‘mercantile’ though including trade, is larger, being extended to all commercial operations, so that we speak of shipping merchants, commission merchants, and forwarding merchants. Still we do not think that the dishes of a restaurant would ever be described as merchandise, or the proprietor as a merchant, or as engaged in mercantile pursuits.” (p. 415.)”
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.