Morriss v. Barton’s Empirical Analysis
1947
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 38 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 48 later decisions — most recently September 2024 · most notably Tietjens v. General Motors Corporation (1967), Finnell v. Seismic (2003)
3 federal appellate · 38 state decisions — followed in 12 states
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 Hewlett v. George · Mid-Continent Life Insurance Co. v. Freeman · Sullivan v. Associated Billposters & Distributors of United States & Canada · Evans v. Gibson · Cragg v. Los Angeles Trust Co.
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 48 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"Where the transaction complained of had its origin in a contract which places the parties in such a relation that in attempting to perform the promised service the tort was committed, then the breach of the contract is not the gravamen of the action. The contract in such case is mere inducement, creating the state of things which furnishes the occasion of the tort, and in all such cases the remedy is an action `ex delicto' and not an action `ex contractu.'"”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“"Accompanying every contract is a common law duty to perform the thing agreed to be done with care, skill, reasonable expediency, and faithfulness, and a negligent failure to observe any of these conditions is a tort as well as a breach of contract, and the injured party may elect to sue upon the contract or treat the wrong as a tort and bring an action ex delicto."”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““The ultimate issuable facts only, as distinguished from evidentiary facts and conclusions of law, must be pleaded. Probative facts requisite to prove ultimate facts need not, and ordinarily should not, be pleaded.””
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.