Smith v. . Dotterweich’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

13 federal appellate · 75 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 94 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The question now before us is whether the testimony of the defendant, supplemented by such legitimate inferences therefrom as are most favorable to him, is of sufficient weight and probative force to create a question of fact for the jury, and that question obviously depends upon the nature and effect of the oral agreement to which he testified. If that agreement, which for present purposes must be assumed to have been made, created a condition precedent, without the performance of which the notes never became valid obligations in favor of the plaintiff, then there is a question of fact for the arbitrament of a jury. The converse of the proposition is equally simple. If the effect of that agreement was to ingraft upon a valid contract a condition subsequent, the learned trial justice was right in ruling that the issue was one of law for his decision.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Hanson v. Greenleaf

2. “■ “Thus, to state the difference most concretely, the case at bar is one in which the oral testimony tends to show that the writing purporting to be a contract is in fact no contract at all; while in the case of the Jamestown Business College the oral testimony was in direct contradiction of the written contract, as to the existence and validity of which there was no controversy.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Rule v. Connealy