2011 Ark. App. 47 - Machen v. Machen’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

53 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 53 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The determination of whether ambiguity exists is ordinarily a question of law for courts to resolve. Machen v. Machen, 2011 Ark. App. 47 , 380 S.W.3d 497 . When a contract is free of ambiguity, its construction and legal effect are questions of law for the court to determine, and it is the court's duty to construe the writing in accordance with the plain meaning of the language employed. Id. Language is ambiguous if there is doubt or uncertainty as to its meaning and it is fairly susceptible to more than one equally reasonable interpretation. Id. The first rule of interpretation of a contract is to give to the language employed the meaning that the parties intended. Id. We must consider the sense and meaning of the words used by the parties as they are taken and understood in their plain and ordinary meaning. Id. It is a well-settled rule that the intention of the parties to a contract is to be gathered, not from particular words and phrases, but from the whole context of the agreement. Id. In determining the true intentions of the parties, different clauses of a contract must be read together and construed so that all of its parts harmonize if that is possible. Harris v. Harris , 82 Ark. App. 321 , 107 S.W.3d 897 (2003). Where the issue of ambiguity may be resolved by reviewing the language of the contract itself, it is the trial court's duty to make such a determination as a matter of law. Smith v. Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co. of Ark., Inc. , 88 Ark. App. 22 , 194 S.W.3d 212 (”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Yancy v. Hunt