Erlich v. Hendrick Construction Co.’s Empirical Analysis
1976
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 17 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 26 later decisions — most recently November 2018 · most notably Advanced Marine Enterprises, Inc. v. PRC Inc. (1998), Spotsylvania County School Board v. Seaboard Surety Co. (1992)
3 federal appellate · 17 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 Massie v. Firmstone · High Knob, Inc. v. Allen · Roanoke Hospital Ass'n v. Doyle & Russell, Inc. · Durham v. National Pool Equipment Co. · Baines v. Parker and Gladding
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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The rule which excludes parol evidence when offered to vary the terms and conditions of an integrated written contact has nowhere been more strictly adhered to in its integrity than in Virginia. It, in effect, declares that, where parties have reduced their contract to a writing which imposes a legal obligation in clear and explicit terms the writing shall be the sole memorial of that contract, and it is conclusively concluded that the writing contains the whole contract, and is the sole evidence of the agreement.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“when a court of equity has once acquired jurisdiction of a cause upon equitable grounds, it may go on to a complete adjudication, even to the extent of establishing legal rights and granting legal remedies which would otherwise be beyond the scope of its authority.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]he party who commits the first breach of a contract ... is not entitled to enforce it, or to maintain an action thereon, against the other party for his subsequent failure to perform.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.