Chapman v. Thomas’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. ““We find the Chancellor to have been right in decreeing specific performance. While its granting or withholding lies in the sound discretion of the court, 'This discretion is not, however, arbitrary; and where the contract is, in its nature and circumstances, unobjectionable — or, as it is sometimes stated, fair, reasonable and certain in all its terms — it is as much a matter of course for a court of equity to decree specific performance of it as it is for a court of law to award damages for its breach/ The Glendale Corp. v. Crawford, 207 Md. 148, 154 , and cases cited. “The contract here answers the description of one justifying specific performance. The appellants’ argument to the contrary, which we find untenable, is that Thomas did not show himself ready and eager to perform, and was in default for not settling within thirty days. Whether time is or is not of the essence in a contract for the sale of real estate, a purchaser who seeks specific performance has two primary obligations. First he must seek relief with due diligence and show that under all the circumstances he was ‘ready, desirous, prompt, and eager’, as an early English case, quoted with approval in Doering v. Fields, 187 Md. 484, 488 , put it. See, too, Raith v. Cohen, 142 Md. 38, 50 ; Soehnlein v. Pumphrey, 183 Md. 334, 338 . Second, if he delays settlement while attempting to. have the seller remedy a claimed defect in the title of the property, he must, when it becomes clear the seller will not meet his ”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Clark v. Route · Robertson v. Coad

2. ““ ‘The accepted doctrine is that in the ordinary case of contract for the sale of land, even though a certain period of time is stipulated for its consummation, equity treats the provision as formal rather than essential, and permits the purchaser who has suffered the period to elapse to make payments after the prescribed date, and to compel performance by the vendor notwithstanding the delay * * *. The doctrine is subject to qualifications, one of the most important of which is that the delay must not be willful and must not have worked any harm to the vendor.’ ””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 162 Md. App. 539 - Azat v. Farruggio · Cadem v. Nanna

3. ““While a purchaser cannot demand a title which is absolutely perfect, a court of equity will see that he gets a title which is free from reasonable doubt, a doubt that is considerable and rational, one which would induce a prudent man to pause, one not based on captious, frivolous and astute niceties, but such as to produce ‘real bona fide hesitation in the mind of the Chancellor.’ In the case before us, Thomas was advised by the title company that unless the encroachment was cleared up, he could not get a completely good title or secure a loan and, further, the encroachment took ten feet from the front of his lots and so interfered with their use as planned. We think that his doubt as to the title was considerable and rational, and not captious, or based on astute niceties, and there is no question but that it produced a real bona fide hesitation in the mind of the Chancellor.””

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