McBriety v. Phillips’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 district · 54 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 60 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““At common law, whenever a declaration alleged a partnership or a corporation or a written instrument material under the pleadings, and issue was joined on the general issue pleas, the burden was on the plaintiff to prove the existence of the partnership or the corporation or the genuineness of the instrument. In the great majority of cases it was impossible to refute the allegation ... In order to obviate this useless procedure, the Legislature in 1888 enacted the rule that whenever the pleadings in an action at law allege the partnership of any parties, or a corporation, or the execution of any written instrument filed in the case, the same shall be taken as admitted unless denied by the next succeeding pleading of the opposite party ... The object of the statute is to facilitate the trial of cases by requiring defendants to declare whether they demand such proof.” McBriety v. Phillips, 180 Md. 569, 571-572 .”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 26 Md. App. 671 - Pradhan v. Maisel · Cooper v. Sacco

2. ““In determining whether a partnership exists, these rules shall apply: (1) Except as provided by § 16 persons who are not partners as to each other are not partners as to third persons.! 5 ! (2) Joint tenancy, tenancy in common, tenancy by the entireties, joint property, common property, or part ownership does not of itself establish a partnership, whether such co-owners do or do not share any profits made by the use of the property. (3) The sharing of gross returns does not of itself establish a partnership, whether or not the persons sharing them have a joint or common right or interest in any property from which the returns are derived. (4) The receipt by a person of a share of the profits of a business is prima facie evidence that he is a partner in the business, but no such inference shall be drawn if such profits were received in payment: (a) Asa debt by installments or otherwise, (b) As wages of an employee or rent to a landlord, (c) As an annuity to a widow or representative of a deceased partner, (d) As interest on a loan, though the amount of payment vary with the profits of the business, (e) As the consideration for the sale of the good will of a business or other property by installments or otherwise.” 6”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 31 Md. App. 641 - Garner v. Garner

3. ““Under the rule of res gestae, conversations of parties in the course of a transaction are admissible when the words are spontaneous and so closely related to the principal transaction as to explain its character. 1 Jones on Evidence, §358; 6 Wigmore on Evidence, §1776; 20 Am. Jur., Evidence, §§ 662, 680. Such utterances, irrespective of their trustworthiness as assertions, are received as verbal parts of the entire act. In upholding this rule Justice Swajme said: Tn the complexity of human affairs, what is done and what is said are often so related that neither can be detached without leaving the residue fragmentary and distorted. There may be fraud and falsehood as to both; but there is no ground of objection to one that does not exist equally as to the other. * * * The tendency of recent adjudications is to extend rather than to narrow, the scope of the doctrine. Rightly guarded in its practical application, there is no principle in the law of evidence more safe in its results.’ Travellers' Insurance Co. v. Mosley, 8 Wall. 397, 408 , 19 L. Ed. 437, 441 .””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 5 Md. App. 599 - Hall v. State