Sheldon v. Blackman’s Empirical Analysis
1925
Citation profile
11 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 11 later decisions — most recently December 1985
11 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.
Relationships
Relies on Cowee v. . Cornell · Wolford v. Powers · Ellis v. Cary · Price v. Jones · Earl v. . Peck
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 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Evidently he did realize their worth and desired to make liberal compensation, which he had the perfect right to do. If he deliberately chose to pay more than the services were really worth, he had the right to do so. . . . There had been a consideration of inestimable value for the execution of the note, and it was in no sense a gift. The utmost that can be fairly claimed is that the consideration for the note was in adequate. But under such facts as here exist, mere inadequacy does not amount to a failure or partial failure of consideration. Of course that may be a circumstance relevant to the issue where fraud or duress or undue influence is claimed, but in this case there is no suggestion of such a claim. There might be circumstances under which the inadequacy of consideration might be so grossly disproportionate to the value of the benefit received or the services rendered that a court might feel justified in refusing to enforce the contract. In this case, where there was no element of fraud or misrepresentation, the value of the services may be measured by the wants of the persons benefited. To hold that this agreement, deliberately made, should be set aside or impaired would be a denial of the right of parties to make their own contracts. There is abundant authority for the rule that when the value of services is indefinite or indeterminate or largely a matter of opinion, the courts will not substitute their judgments for that of the contracting parties. [Cases].””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““It is well settled that an instrument otherwise valid as an agreement for the payment of money is not invalidated merely because payment is postponed until or after death.””
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.