Miller v. McKinnon’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

9 federal appellate · 155 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 166 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ ‘Undoubtedly a school board, like a municipal corporation, may, under some circumstances, be held liable upon an implied contract for benefits received by it, but this rule of implied liability is applied only in those cases where the board or municipality is given the general power to contract with reference to a subject-matter, and the express contract which it has assumed to enter into in pursuance of this general power is rendered invalid for some mere irregularity or some invalidity in the execution thereof, and where the form or manner of entering into a contract is not violative of any statutory restriction upon the general power of the governing body to contract nor violative of public policy. In the absence of such restriction on the mode or manner of contracting, the same general rule applies to such inferior political bodies as to individuals, and the former will be held responsible on an implied contract for the payment of benefits it receives under an illegal express contract not prohibited by law. * * * But, while the doctrine of implied liability applies where general power to contract on a subject exists and the form or manner of doing so is not expressly provided by charter or statute, the decided weight of authority is to the effect that, when by statute the power of the board or municipality to make a contract is limited to a certain prescribed method of doing so, and any other method of doing it is expressly or impliedly prohibited, no implied liability ”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Seim v. Independent District of Monroe · Roush v. Town of Esmond

2. “[A] cause of action exists to recover from the person receiving [public] money illegally paid, independent of any statute, and it is also clear that the action may be prosecuted by a taxpayer in his name on behalf of the public agency.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. A.J. Fistes Corp. v. GDL Best Contractors, Inc. · County of San Diego v. Milotz

3. “shall be incurred or authorized”; that here the controller did not do so because the contract papers were not presented to him until after the work was done; and that his refusal to certify at the latter date was justified by the final paragraph of section 86, which declares that "All obligations incurred ... contrary to the provisions of this section, shall be void, and any claim or demand against the city and county based thereon shall be invalid.” Defendants rely on the many decisions holding that "the mode of contracting as prescribed by the municipal charter, is the measure of the power to contract; and a contract made in disregard of the prescribed mode is unenforceable”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 61 Cal. 2d 199 - Flora Crane Service, Inc. v. Ross