Keller v. Scranton’s Empirical Analysis
1901
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 40 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 45 later decisions — most recently September 2002 · most notably Tranter v. Alleghency County Co. Authority (1934), Busser v. Snyder (1924)
1 federal appellate · 40 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 Appeal of the City of Erie
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 45 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"* * * when * * * (the) `tort' is done under a contract and the assumption of the consequent damages is an express term of such contract, we have a perfectly clear case outside of the principle that makes municipalities liable for their wrongful acts, without regard to their indebtedness, and, within the constitutional prohibition of a contractual obligation to pay in future for a consideration in the present."”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““The constitutional provision is intended as a restraint on this spendthrift tendency, to curb the extravagance of municipal expenditure on credit, to prevent municipalities from loaMng the future vMh obligations to pay for things the present desires, but cannot justly afford, and, in short, to establish the principle that, beyond the defined limits, they must pay as they go. No limit is fixed to expenditure for which present means of payment are provided (City of Erie’s Appeal, 91 Pa. 398 ), but a peremptory prohibition is put on expenditure on credit beyond the prescribed bounds. ‘Debt’ and ‘indebtedness,’ in the section in question, are not used in any technical way, but in their broad, general meaning, of all contractual obligations to pay in the future for considerations received in the present. (19 R. C. L. 979.) * * * “It is true that the constitution does not exempt municipalities, how great soever their indebtedness, from liability for wrongful and tortious acts. But it does not authorize the voluntary assumption of obligation to pay money by the scheme of a tort. The distinction between real or unpremeditated torts, and voluntary acts, under the technical name of ‘torts,’ done by agreement for the accomplishment of a purpose prohibited to be done by contract, is clear and substantial.” (19 R. C. L. 981.) (Italics Supplied.)”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“Debt and indebtedness in the section in question are not used in any technical way, but in their broad general meaning of all contractual obligation to pay in the future for considerations received in the present.”
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.