Smith v. Bach’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 district · 144 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 155 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The general rule controlling in cases of this character is that where a statute prohibits or attaches a penalty to the doing of an act, the act is void, and this, notwithstanding that the statute does not expressly pronounce it so. . . .””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 106 Cal. App. 783 - Live Oak Cemetery Assn. v. Adamson · Severance v. Knight-Counihan Co.

2. ““There are authorities which, while not denying the general rule that an illegal contract cannot be enforced whether malum in se or malum prohibitum, hold that all the consequences which attend a contract contrary to public morals do not attend one which is purely malum prohibitum, and that in the latter case courts will take notice of the circumstances and will give relief if justice and equity require a restoration of money received by either party thereunder. (13 Cor. Jur., p. 411, see. 341.) In such a case the complaining party is protected, the prohibition being for his benefit, and not being in pari delicto he is entitled to relief. (Id., p. 501, sec. 443.) ... By the weight of authority where money has been paid in consideration of an executory contract which is illegal, the party who has paid it may repudiate the agreement at any time before it is executed and reclaim the money. In such a case it is the duty of the court in furtherance of justice to aid one not in pari delicto, though to some extent involved in the illegality, but who, as here, is comparatively the more innocent, and to permit him to recover back money paid on a contract as the circumstances of the case may require. (Pomeroy’s Equity Jurisprudence, 3d ed., sec. 942; Gray v. Roberts, 2 A. K. Marsh. (Ky.) 208 [ 12 Am. Dec. 383 , 385] ; Wassermann v. Sloss, 117 Cal. 425, 431 [ 59 Am. St. Rep. 209 , 38 L. R. A. 176, 49 Pac. 566 ] ; City of Los Angeles v. City Bank, 100 Cal. 18 [ 34 Pac. 510 ]; Savings Ban”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Lewis v. Ferrari

3. “[a] statute ... prohibiting the making of contracts, except in a certain manner, ipso facto makes them void if made in any other way”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 242 Cal. Rptr. 3d 87 - Luxor Cabs, Inc. v. Applied Underwriters Captive Risk Assurance Co.