Oleyar v. Kerr, Trustee’s Empirical Analysis
1976
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 2 district · 103 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 150 later decisions — most recently December 2018 · most notably Richmond Metropolitan Authority v. McDevitt Street Bovis, Inc. (1998), Comptroller Ex Rel. Virginia Military Institute v. King (1977)
6 federal appellate · 2 district · 103 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 McCormick v. Romans · Schirmer v. Nethercutt · Robbins v. Grimes · Juhnke v. Hess · 250 F. Supp. 904 - Barrett v. Burt
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 150 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“If the cause of complaint be for an act of omission or non-feasance which, without proof of a contract to do what was left undone, would not give rise to any cause of action (because no duty apart from contract to do what is complained of exists) then the action is founded upon contract, and not upon tort. If, on the other hand, the relation of the plaintiff and the defendants be such that a duty arises from that relationship, irrespective of contract, to take due care, and the defendants are negligent, then the action is one of tort.”
17 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“an action for the negligence of an attorney in the performance of professional services, while sounding in tort, is an action for breach of contract....”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“actions founded upon a contract ... shall be brought within the following number of years next after the cause of action shall have accrued : ... 4. In actions upon any unwritten contract, express or implied, within three years.”
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.