202 W. Va. 215 - Jessee v. Aycoth’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 district · 10 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 16 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “If an inquiring court concludes that an ambiguity exists in a contract, the ultimate resolution of it typically will turn on the parties’ intent. Exploring the intent of the contracting parties often, but not always, involves marshaling facts extrinsic to the language of the contract document. When this need arises, these facts together with reasonable inferences extractable therefrom are superimposed on the ambiguous words to reveal the parties’ discerned intent.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Poling v. Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc.

2. “In the instant case, the provision in the settlement agreement relating to the marital residence was clear and unambiguous as to the division of duties and the division of equity. However, the provision was entirely silent regarding when the residence was to be sold. Therefore, the lower court was correct to admit parol evidence, in order to ascertain the intent of the parties.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Poling v. Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc.

3. “This Court has advised that “[wjhen a trial court determines that an agreement is ambiguous and construes the meaning of a provision in the contract based on extrinsic evidence, such as the parties’ intent, our standard of review is ‘clearly erroneous.’ ” Jessee v. Aycoth, 202 W.Va. 215, 218 , 503 S.E.2d 528, 531 (1998) [(per curiam) (internal citation omitted)].”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Lee v. Lee